


In the Light

by like_an_old_friend



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, The Rise of Skywalker
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben Solo Deserved Better, Character Death Fix, Eventual Smut, Exhibitionism, F/M, Fan Service Done Right, First Time, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Ghost Anakin Skywalker, Force Ghost Leia Organa, Force Ghost Luke Skywalker, Force Ghost Obi-Wan Kenobi, Force Ghost Yoda (Star Wars), Hurt/Comfort, Hut Sex, Loss of Virginity, Lots of PT and OT Call backs, One X-Wing, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Post-Canon Fix-It, TROS Fix IT, The Force Ghosts Help Rey AND Ben, The Force Ships It, Vaginal Fingering, Virgin Ben Solo, Virgin Rey (Star Wars), two dorks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:41:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21976021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/like_an_old_friend/pseuds/like_an_old_friend
Summary: FateDealt you a tricky handNow you're just left alone in your mindAnd I have gone awayI don't know why I just can't let it goMemory's old but I just can't let it goIn the light, right here in the lightRight here in thehold me and don't you ever let this die- "In the Light" by The LumineersA multi-chapter TROS fix-it fic with a HEA that I needed to write. I hope it helps you heal, as well. Keep creating, everyone! That's how we will win. :)
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 24
Kudos: 75





	1. Be with Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I love you.
> 
> She knows for sure that he heard her when a wide smile blooms across his face and the most beautiful light Rey has ever seen erupts from him, brighter than the desert sun at midday, his Force signature burning with joy and goodness and love. It blinds her, knocks her off balance so that she barely notices Ben’s fading whisper in her mind: “I know.”
> 
> Then he is falling, too heavy for Rey to hold. She struggles to ease his fall to the ground but he pulls her down with him. At first she doesn’t understand. His lips were so warm and gentle against hers, his hand heavy and alive on her abdomen. Her mind snaps to the thread, to the bond, and one tiny fiber among the many that have broken holds them together...

Between the darkness and the cold, there is peace and the Force. All these things wrap like a blanket around Rey as she floats on a sea of nothingness. But when she opens her eyes, or what she thinks might be her eyes, there is something. A light if this place could have light. It shines far off in the distance, pulsing, glowing, beating. Steady like a heart.

The nothing she floats on is comfortable; she can finally rest. Her family doesn’t matter here. Her past doesn’t matter here. But the glow remains insistent. It cries to her now, it pleads, an entreaty Rey almost finds familiar—“ _Please_ ”— in a voice she heard somewhere in a life that seems exhausting now. An incandescent string descends—or ascends, such distinctions don’t matter here—and wraps itself around her wrists.

Vaguely, Rey is aware she is moving, the string towing her toward the light, which seems to be twinkling. Her name spoken in a familiar voice reverberates through the void just before the string yanks her (up, down, it isn’t clear) and she squints as dim light dawns.

Between the darkness and cold, there is Ben and his hand. It rests on her stomach and she can feel the thread knitted between their bodies before she opens her eyes. Her hand covers his, and he is peace and the Force.

When she sits up, the ache that coursed through her bones before returns. It takes effort to use her muscles, but she wants to look at him, drink in every single piece of him. Of Ben.

 _ **You came back**_ , she says through the bond.

His voice in her mind is curiously weak when he replies, _You weren’t going to Exegol without me_.

She can’t help but smile at his stubbornness. “Ben.” She doesn’t know why she says it out loud. Maybe to finally claim him as her own, to speak it into existence and make it real. Across the bond, a faint murmur: _Rey, I—_

Her kiss cuts him off, but she feels his unformed words blossoming and expanding in her chest. All of her love and gratitude she pours into her lips and breathes it into him. His hand on her back pulls her body closer to him at the same time that she senses their thread start to fray. She pulls away to look at him, to reassure herself again that he is there.

_**I love you.** _

She knows for sure that he heard her when a wide smile blooms across his face and the most beautiful light Rey has ever seen erupts from him, brighter than the desert sun at midday, his Force signature burning with joy and goodness and love. It blinds her, knocks her off balance so that she barely notices Ben’s fading whisper in her mind: _“I know.”_

Then he is falling, too heavy for Rey to hold. She struggles to ease his fall to the ground but he pulls her down with him. At first she doesn’t understand. His lips were so warm and gentle against hers, his hand heavy and alive on her abdomen. Her mind snaps to the thread, to the bond, and one tiny fiber among the many that have broken holds them together as her head falls onto his chest.

“Be with me,” she murmurs against his slowing heart as the last thread is breaking, the fiber tearing. Again, through their fraying bond, _**Be with me, Ben.**_

**_Please._ **

“Don’t let go,” a voice says. She doesn’t recognize the voice, but it’s deep, resonant, kind. It’s not Luke’s voice, but she knows it is connected to Luke and to Ben.

She concentrates on Ben’s force signature and there is little of it left. She feels it slipping to a place where she has been, but to where she cannot follow.

“Now!” The strange voice commands just as the last fiber of the bond's thread snaps. With every ounce of strength she has left, she lashes out with her mind and grabs the end of the thread, wraps fingers of consciousness around it and tugs.

Ben’s Life Force is surprisingly light, but something seems to be dragging him in the other direction.

“Pull.” Rey looks up and sees a large, kindly older man crouching over her, the source of the strange voice. He glows a brilliant gas blue like the engines of the Falcon as it takes off into the night sky. “Pull now, Rey,” he says.

“I can’t,” she whispers. “Something is stopping me, and I’m tired. So tired, I—“ Rey feels hot tears dripping from her eyes, pouring down her face, soaking Ben’s shirt. The man suddenly turns, as though someone beckons his attention. At first Rey is puzzled but then she senses the warmth, the light, the gentle caress of a familiar presence. Its blue is whiter than the man’s, almost blindingly sky blue.

“She needs him,” the man says.

A soft sigh, like a warm twilight breeze in Ajan Kloss.

“I know.”

Leia.

“I understand,” the man says kindly. “Believe me, I understand the longing of a parent to be with their child. Especially when the child has only just returned.”

Another sigh, warm tea on a winter's day. A colorful sunset on Jakku. A family, joyfully reunited after many years. Rey cries harder, her sobs shaking the hand that grips her bond with Ben and rippling the thread that barely keeps his presence from slipping away from her forever.

“He wants to be with you,” the man says. “That’s what is keeping him from returning to her.”

He stands and faces Leia now.

“You must release him.”

Leia hesitates for a moment and Rey cannot prevent a sob from escaping her lips. “She won’t react like you did,” Leia tells the man. “She is pure light. The Chosen One.”

The man frowns. “That is so,” he says. “But the Skywalkers have had more than their share of heartbreak. It ends now.”

Suddenly, Rey understands; this is Darth Vader, Anakin. The man Ben had revered, his grandfather. She senses Anakin is in the light now, and it breaks her heart that he is so desperate to save her from a fate like his. _**Be with me**_ , she murmurs into the place in her heart that only she and Ben know.

As if Leia hears her, she goes over and crouches next to Rey, finally acknowledging her student's presence. She puts a gentle hand on Rey’s back, sliding it over her spine. The sensation is soothing and it ripples across her mind, a mother’s warmth and a tender caress. “Rey.” With Leia’s soft whisper, a sense of calm determination wraps itself around her. Her sobs slow and abate. She finds the strength to tense her arm, pull the bond tighter, and secure the thread around her wrist.

“I can’t let him go,” she explains. Two fat tears leak from Rey’s eyes at the unfathomable grief if she were to lose both of them.

Leia nods and closes her eyes, her voice soothing and musical like a lullaby when she finally speaks. “Ben. Ben, she needs you. Come back to her again, my darling.” Leia pauses and strokes Rey’s back soothingly once more. “We will be together again soon. But this isn’t your time. It’s not your time.”

The thread of the bond vibrates around Rey’s wrist and the tension in it slackens, like someone has dropped the rope on the other end of Ben. Rey would cry out with joy, but she grows more fatigued by the second, her borrowed strength draining out of her body with the effort of holding Ben to her.

"I'm--" Leia pauses. "I'm so proud of you, Ben. You can do this. Come back to Rey."

A pulse of golden light through the bond makes Rey shiver. Leia seems to sense it too, and she suddenly shifts to a more business-like demeanor.

“Put your hand on his chest, Rey,” she instructs briskly. Rey nods and struggles up a bit on her elbow to press her free hand over his heart, at the same time using as much strength as she can muster to tighten her grip on the bond. “Now, it’s a lot like Force healing. Gather everything in you, and pass it to him. Direct your Force to him through your hand.”

“Is that what he did for me?”

Leia smiles, her eyes bright and proud. “Yes.”

Rey tastes the salty tears on her lips as the corners of her mouth turn upward. She knows immediately that he must come back to her. That he will.

“Now, I will help pull on the thread of your bond at the same time you pour your Force into him,” Leia continues. “In this way, we should be able to bring him back. The only reason this can work is because you are a dyad.”

The memory of Palpatine's cruel voice rises in Rey's mind... _like life itself_...

Suddenly, Rey senses Anakin next to his daughter again, kneeling near Rey and Ben’s entwined legs. “I will give you any strength I can, so it will not drain you completely as it did him.”

Rey nods, her cheek gliding against Ben’s cooling sweater. Leia counts softly beside her. On Leia’s count of three, Rey concentrates on surging her love, her force, her everything through her palm to Ben. The effort of it makes it much harder to hold on to the bond and Rey feels the thread slipping through her fingers.

“Hold on,” Anakin shouts over the thundering sound that fills her mind. A blast of light, a rush of love, a whirlwind of the Force almost knocks her off of Ben's body but she holds on as warmth mends the thread and weaves it back together, the strands melting and joining and pulling. When she opens her eyes, Leia and Anakin are gone, but she is not alone. She realizes the thundering is coming from beneath her ear. It’s the beating of Ben’s heart.

She looks up at his face just in time to see his eyelids flutter open. His eyes focus on her as the bond fills with a swell of joy and relief. Raking his tongue across his dry lips, he lifts his head, scans their surroundings, and cups a hand to Rey’s cheek. His voice croaks when he speaks: “We need to get out of here.”


	2. Guard the Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Powerful, very powerful love is.”
> 
> Rey feels Ben shift behind her, his arm flexing under her ribs to the point of uncomfortable tightness. “But love is not the Jedi way, is it, Master Yoda?” His voice carries a slightly hostile edge. “‘There is no emotion, there is pea—'"
> 
> The glowing green creature interrupts Ben’s sarcastic recitation with a resounding clack of his stick on the stone floor. “Wrong the Jedi were, about many things.”

“We need to get out of here.”

Ben’s eyes dart over her shoulder, and Rey gets the impression that he is looking at shadows she cannot see.

“The dark…” he licks his lips and a tiny line appears between his brows. “It’s strong here.”

She swipes a lock of hair from his forehead and presses her lips to the warm skin. “The light is, too,” she murmurs.

“Thinner it is, here,” croaks a strange, gravely little voice. “The line between light and dark, this world and the other.”

Rey can barely pull her gaze away from Ben’s deep brown eyes, but she looks around to see a small, glowing figure standing near the pit where Ben had fallen.

“It can’t be,” he mutters over her shoulder, struggling to sit up.

Reluctantly dragging her heavy limbs off of him, Rey rolls to the stone floor and heaves to a sitting position. She tests her legs, but they feel hollow and feeble, still too weak to stand.

Ben’s hand clutches her waist, fabric rustles behind her, and she suddenly feels his solid chest against her back, his heart beating through both of their tunics.

“Master Yoda,” he breathes against the curve at the top of her ear. His exhalations tickle the sensitive skin, sending hot tremors through Rey’s body. _Luke’s teacher_ , he adds through the bond, his tone tinged with wariness.

The little figure nods, its large, pointed ears flapping like wings. “Yes, Young Solo.” He inches a gnarled wooden stick forward and leans on it to take a small step closer.

“Brave, you have been,” Master Yoda croaks before taking another halting step. “But also foolish. Greedy. And angry. Very angry.”

Through the bond, Rey senses Ben bristle at the words. She sends a gentle caress along the golden thread; against her back, his muscles soften, and he melts even more into her, wrapping an arm around her torso. He’s leaning on her, using her for physical and emotional support.

“I—I want to be better,” he murmurs, his lips so close to her ear that she shivers, remembering how warm and soft those lips had felt against her own. She wonders how they would feel elsewhere on her skin.

“Hmpf. Given you another chance, the Force has,” Master Yoda says, frowning as though he disapproves of the Force’s decision.

He starts to limp closer still. The little master’s large brown eyes turn to Rey. It is as though he can see right through her bones, down to the deepest part of her being, but it isn't unpleasant, like being probed by the dark side. It feels less invasive and more like a gentle hug, a brush of light against her mind.

“Powerful, _very_ powerful love is.”

Rey feels Ben shift behind her, his arm flexing under her ribs to the point of uncomfortable tightness. “But love is not the Jedi way, is it, Master Yoda?” His voice carries a slightly hostile edge. “‘There is no emotion, there is pea—'"

The glowing green creature interrupts Ben’s sarcastic recitation with a resounding clack of his stick on the stone floor. “Wrong the Jedi were, about many things.” He moves closer to where Ben and Rey sit, sheer strength radiating from his spirit. “Forbidden, love was, for Jedi in the Old Republic.”

“Created Darth Vader, it did.” Master Yoda punctuates each word by jabbing his stick toward Ben’s face. “ _Redeemed_ Darth Vader, too, mmm. Yes.”

The old master takes another step, coming almost eye to eye with Rey. Ben tenses even more at his proximity; Rey gently glides her fingers back and forth along his forearm until the muscle relaxes, until she can breathe again.

 _ **It’s alright**_ , she whispers through the bond. **_He wants to help. I can feel it._**

Ben buries his nose in her hair in response, and she can sense the waves of skeptical energy radiating from him as he inhales her.

_**Clear your mind. Open yourself completely. You’ll feel it too.** _

Master Yoda examines her face for what feels like a long time, pressing his mouth into a line. She waits, wondering if he can hear her whispering to Ben through the bond, curious about what secrets this strange little creature shared with Master Luke. Then finally, he speaks. “Hard to understand, the Force. Understand fully, the Jedi did not.” He points a stubby, crooked finger at Rey. “Young Palpatine, proven you have...love IS the light. Yes. Mmhmm.” Rey flinches at the name, but Master Yoda seems not to notice. He nods at Ben. “Taught _me_ , you have...Righteous the dark is, when it serves the light.”

Master Yoda extends a glowing, blue, three-fingered hand, and Rey thinks his mouth curves in a semblance of a smile. “Protect the balance, you will.”

It takes Rey a second to understand Master Yoda’s gesture. Even though she thinks she is too weak, she smiles and wraps her fingers around his. A surge of strength pulses through her body, allowing her to push off the floor and stand upright. When she lets go of the little hand, her legs shake like they did when she was 10 and she hadn’t eaten in days. She knows, though, that this time she will not fall.

“Ben,” she whispers, turning and lacing her fingers through his. “Can you stand?”

“I guess we’ll find out,” he says with a crooked grimace that’s all Han.

“Your strength, you must give him,” Master Yoda instructs. “And you to her, when she needs it. Use your connection, you must, if you hope to leave this place.”

Closing her eyes, Rey reaches for the bond. She strums the golden thread in her mind at the same time she feels the electric connection of their hands clasped between their bodies, her heart swelling with either her love or his love or _both_ mingled together. With a breath, she pushes as much of her Force into him as she can spare, and with her physical body, she pulls back. He rises to his feet so quickly that it almost knocks her backward, but he wraps his arms around her and pulls her back onto her feet.

“Careful, sweetheart,” Ben whispers into the shell of her ear before releasing her.

The waves of desire that shoot straight to Rey’s core blow away with a gust of air that ruffles tiny hairs near her face. She and Ben turn together to see Master Yoda, eyes closed and hand outstretched. She feels his call in the Force, and suddenly the lightsabers she thought she had lost after the fight with Palpatine come zooming through the air. She puts up her hand just in time to grab Luke’s; Ben mirrors her movements to retrieve Leia’s.

Master Yoda opens his eyes, looking straight at Ben. “Now go. Guard the light. Nurture the balance. And be with you always, the Force will.”

“Thank you,” Ben murmurs.

Rey stares up at him, watching myriad expressions she can’t understand play across his features while Master Yoda fades. In the bond, there is such a violent swirl of emotions inside of him that she cannot catch one to examine it, so she retreats and leaves him alone with his thoughts. Even after the glow has gone, he continues to stare at the spot with unfocused eyes, before he shakes his head a tiny bit and clips the lightsaber to his belt. She does the same and then meets his gaze.

“It’s just us now,” she says, lips curving into a small smile.

He laughs, and she holds the lovely sound, the way his eyes crinkle and dimples frame his mouth, in her heart. This is the first time—she hopes the first of many—that she has made him laugh.

“I wish,” he says with a grin and a mischievous twinkle in his eyes that reminds her so much of Han that her chest aches. He grows sober as his gaze sweeps around in the shadows again. “But you heard Master Yoda. There are many ghosts here.”

He smiles once more when he looks at her and extends his hand. This time, she takes it gladly.


	3. Don't Let Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Panting and sweating, Ben throws his arms over the chunk of stone where she sits and slowly pulls himself up and onto his back._   
>  _I’ll just rest here a minute. Or 50._   
>  _No, Rey snaps, securing her lightsaber and standing to begin her descent. We need to move._   
>  _Ben grumbles something that she can’t hear, but she can feel his displeasure, his aching muscles, his fading life force through the bond. She extends a hand to help pull him up, and laces their fingers together as they begin to carefully pick their way down the fallen rock._   
>  _Don’t let go, he whispers in her mind._   
>  _I won’t, she promises. Not ever._

As they scramble over fallen Sith idols and ancient chunks of rock, Rey knows they are on borrowed time. She can feel the strength lent to them by Master Yoda wane with each jogged step, and across the bond, Ben’s life force grows dimmer.

_**Just hold on. Almost there.** _

_Yeah? What about that?_

He pulls Rey to a skidding stop right in front of a massive rock pile where the walls and statues of the temple had caved under the sheer power of her assault against Palpatine. In the gloom, they ignite their lightsabers for a better look, and it quickly becomes clear that the broken, jagged, crumbled stone blocks the corridor completely, with no way around on the sides. They power down their sabers and clip them back on their belts before Rey fights through her growing exhaustion to the Force. The usually solid, dependable power in her mind has become slippery and ephemeral.

She inhales a few deep breaths and puts a hand forward to move the rocks that block their path. A few of the smaller ones rise, and she moves them aside. The larger ones, though, seem to defy her efforts to wrap her mind around them. Every time she tries, it feels as if they’ve been coated in engine grease and they slide right through her fingers. Beside her, Ben centers himself and reaches out, too, their combined effort pulling a stone the size of her old AT-AT an inch off the ground, until his Force signature flickers dangerously, and he lets out a little groan and slumps his shoulder against hers.

 _I can’t._ He gasps for air as he adds, _Palpatine took so much...And bringing you back was..._

Rey studies the huge stone pile again and nods. _**Then we’ll climb.**_

She closes her eyes, calling on the Force to show her the most stable path, the easiest path, the one that will conserve the most energy.

 _Too bad you couldn’t just Force-jump it_.

With her eyes still closed, Rey smiles in amusement at his teasing. She feels the rocks call out to her, but their voices seem weak and far away.

_I mean, it’s not leaping from the hangar of a Star Destroyer to a moving ship or anything, so maybe this would be too easy for you..._

_**I wish I was strong enough right now.**_ She grins. **_That was fun._**

 _I was being a kriffing nerf herder….worse than a nerf herder...a…_ The bond grows quiet and she senses him reaching for the right words. _I’m too tired to think of anything worse right now_ , he concludes. _But that’s what I was_.

 _ **You were quite awful**_. She throws the acknowledgment across their connection. He grows quiet as another part of her mind begs the Force to show her how to climb the rocks.

“So many times, I’ve watched the people I love disappear on that piece of junk.”

His words, softly spoken aloud, twist Rey’s heart. He’s talking about the Falcon, she realizes. 

“Usually they just _walked_ away, so I appreciated your novel approach.”

She drops her grip on the Force, opens her eyes, and turns to Ben, taking his face in her hands. His lips curve but his eyes fill with sadness before faded memories and emotions play across their linked minds—tears on their cheeks as they watch the Falcon soar into the sky yet again; Lando hastily ruffling their hair and tossing over his shoulder, “Be good, Little Starfighter” as he bounds up into the ship; the view of Chewie ducking inside over and over and over; a younger Leia and Han walking up the ramp to the Falcon without ever once looking back.

As the memories dissolve, real tears pour down her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she manages to whisper. “I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay,” he says with a weak smile. “I understand now why everyone always left me. I _was_ awful.” He searches her face even in the darkness, and through the bond, she senses his intensity, his sincerity, his resolve. “Not anymore.” He takes a breath and tucks his chin to look straight into her eyes. “I’m going to be everything you deserve, Rey. I promise.”

Something catches in her throat as his trembling fingertips wipe the tears from her cheeks. Without breaking her gaze, he covers her hands in his, pulls them from his face, and kisses each palm. As he lowers their joined hands, he tries to give them a reassuring squeeze. Rey gasps when his massive hands can only manage a weak tightening of his fingers, like a tiny youngling’s soft grip.

His Force signature pulses a gentle, fading cerulean blue.

Rey knows they don’t have much time.

***************

The rocks show her the way. They seem to glow faintly to outline a path that makes for a rather easy ascent: closely arranged handholds, footholds placed just so in order to avoid having to pull up their full body weights with tired arms.

As she reaches the top, Rey sends a silent thank you to the stones, the Force, whatever has allowed this climb to be as uneventful as it has. She swings her legs over the edge of a huge slab of rock perched at the top of the pile and peers ahead as Ben grunts and huffs below with the effort of retracing her path. The blackness is more acute on the other side of the corridor. She isn’t sure if it is the dominance of the dark here in the heart of the temple, or the fact that a thin haze of ancient dust hangs in the air over the ruins. Even using her ignited saber, she can barely see a couple of feet ahead of her.

Panting and sweating, Ben throws his arms over the chunk of stone where she sits and slowly pulls himself up, rolling onto his back.

_I’ll just rest here a minute. Or fifty._

_**No**_ , Rey snaps, securing her lightsaber and standing to begin her descent. _**We need to move.**_

Ben grumbles something that she can’t hear, but she can feel his displeasure, his aching muscles, his fading life force through the bond. She extends a hand to help pull him up, and laces their fingers together as they begin to carefully pick their way down the fallen rock.

 _Don’t let go_ , he whispers in her mind.

 _ **I won’t**_ , she promises. _**Not ever**_.

At the same moment that a swell of joy pulses from Ben across the bond, her foot comes down on a piece of stone that drops out from under her, making her other foot falter on its hold. She feels herself slide downward as the world beneath her disappears. One jerk on her arm, but then Ben is gone, too, his fingers slipping from her grasp. With nothing to stop her, the gravity of this planet takes hold and she falls and falls and falls. If she had more strength, if she had more time, she would call on the Force to right herself or at least pull Ben’s body to her. But he is gone, lost in a wild, uncontrolled tumble of rocks.

It seems like ages of falling before Rey’s body resounds against solid ground with a painful jolt. Momentum keeps her rolling along with the stones that have been her companions on her descent. Without warning, her head hits something hard. There is a metallic clang and a bloom of pain, then all is black and silent and still.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANGST! This was a short chapter, but I needed to get Ben Solo on the Pain Train, and I needed set up the next chapter, which will be much longer. :)


	4. Her Last Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Obi-Wan sighs good naturedly and turns to the other man. “You always do this.”_
> 
> _“Aren’t you glad I’ve remembered how to properly address you after all this time?”_
> 
> _“I haven’t been your master for many years, Anakin.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a long chapter, but I think, a good one! I'm proud of it, and I hope you enjoy. 
> 
> A warning before you begin: This is where the story really earns its hurt/comfort tag. There are some descriptions of blood and corpses, as well as people making out amidst blood and corpses, though there's nothing too graphic. And I promise, the corpses are NOT involved in the making out. That's not my jam, people. 
> 
> Regardless, if you feel any of that might be triggering for you, you might want to skip from the words "Vicrul Ren" to the paragraph that begins "She doesn't know what to do..."

With a gasp, Rey suddenly awakes to a painful headache that feels like BB-8 has rolled over her head a thousand times. Slowly, she becomes aware of the rest of her body.

After falling down the rock pile, she has come to rest on her stomach, limbs sprawled around her. The next thing she notices is that under her cheek is some kind of viscous, sharp-smelling substance. With a deep breath, she’s able to lift her head off the ground to wipe the dampness from her face.

Full consciousness brings a wave of panic as she remembers the bond. When she tugs it with all her might, silence greets her on the other end, but a soft pulse reassures her Ben’s heart still beats somewhere nearby.

It takes effort, but Rey is able to lift her hips just enough to pull her lightsaber off her belt. She holds her hand out and with the other, ignites the saber. In the blue glow, she recognizes the purple liquid on her fingers immediately. She wipes them on the outside of pants and brings them up to the most tender spot on her head, prodding gently for split skin and a warm gush of blood. When she brings her hand back to the glow of the saber, there is nothing. Her head is not bleeding. Besides her head, her ankle hurts the worst, a sharp pain that probably indicates a broken bone. She gently rubs all around the painful area and brings her hand up to the saber’s circle of blue again. No fresh blood. With a sigh of relief, she lets her throbbing head fall down to the ground. She’s not bleeding, then, except for maybe some superficial cuts and scrapes. Nothing too serious.

But then another thought occurs to her - Ben. Carefully, she pulls the lightsaber down past her shoulder, holding the blade parallel to her face, knowing that she will not have the strength to save him this time if he lies bleeding out next to her. But staring back at her across the blade is the void eyeholes of a grotesque, horrible mask.

The shocking sight jolts her heart and she shrieks Ben’s name through the bond.

Fighting to control her breath, she probes the helmet with the handle end of the lightsaber. A metallic clang rings out through the stillness and nothing stirs, except Ben across their connection.

She reaches out with what little of the Force she can still grasp, feeling for life behind the mask, and concludes whatever is behind it is no longer alive.

Ben prods her mind, searching frantically for the source of her terror. She opens herself, invites him to see through her eyes the image that has given her such a fright.

Ben’s panic ebbs to a small sigh of relief.

She waits a moment before reaching out again, this time in confusion.

A slight hesitation, then his voice intones in her mind: _Ap’lek Ren._

Rey puzzles at his words, and follows the golden thread to find the place from which his words seem to have come. She turns her head, laying her other cheek on the ground, and holds the saber on this side. Immediately next to her in the blue glow, she sees only a crumpled, bloody body, half-buried by fallen stone, clad all in black with its face hidden by a hideous helmet.

A flare of sadness from across the bond. _Vicrul Ren._

 _ **Ren?**_ She repeats the familiar name with growing horror, and glances again at the silver lines tracing the contours of Vicrul’s helmet. Summoning her strength and wincing with pain, she lifts her head and extends the arm holding her lightsaber out away from her. She brings it far out to her left and can barely distinguish Ben in the gloom, lying on his side, face to face with a maskless corpse, staring into its unseeing eyes.

 _This is Kuruk Ren_.

The lightsaber trembles as she continues to move it in a slow arc.

All around, there are bodies crumpled in every position. Bodies with holes, bodies with slashes, bodies with gaping wounds and missing limbs. Blood flows from some of them, others have wounds that have been cauterized by pure energy. Some wear helmets, some do not. She inhales sharply, and Ben’s flat voice echoes in her mind: _Rey, meet the Knights of Ren_.

The lightsaber clatters to the floor and she tries to sit up, but everything aches and she cannot move from her prone position. Her life force is waning; she knows Ben’s is too. His walls crumble and sorrow rolls off of him in dark grey waves.

“They were my friends,” he murmurs. “Or the closest I ever had to friends.”

_**This is why you called out to me, why you needed the lightsaber.** _

_Yes._

“Ben,” she cries aloud, her voice shaking. “Ben, you—-"

Bile rises in her throat at the thought of turning a weapon on Finn, or Poe, or Chewie, or Rose, or any of the people in the Resistance she has come to know and care for. What would make anyone--

“They were going to kill me, Rey,” he says quietly. She gasps and lowers her cheek back to the ground, letting her tears mingle with the dust of old statues and the blood of Ap’lek Ren. “They wanted to stop me, but I knew I had to get to you.” His voice breaks as he continues: “I would have done anything to get to you.”

The connection goes still and silent, Ben walling himself off from the bond to prevent any offers of comfort as he starts to cry.

“Ben.” Rey’s fingers scrabble for purchase on the dusty stone floor. She inches forward on her belly, her forehead dragging on the floor with the effort of fighting through her headache. A loud sob from him floods her heart with compassion so powerful that it pushes her to her knees. Slowly, painfully, she crawls around the corpses, a bloody scythe that had fallen on the floor in the heat of battle, a discarded helmet. She pauses beside the body of Kuruk Ren.

“May the force be with you, Kuruk,” she whispers and closes his eyelids with gentle fingers.

She drags herself around the knight to find Ben praying her name over and over in a voice choked with emotion. She collapses onto her side to face him, and immediately he weaves a hand through her messy buns, anchoring her lips to his in a hard, salty kiss. He drapes a leg over her thighs, pulling her hips into his, as if he can’t get close enough to her, as if nothing will ever be close enough. A soft moan tumbles from her lips, allowing him to slip into her mouth, caressing her tongue with his own. Rey presses her mouth up to deepen the kiss, but Ben starts shaking uncontrollably.

She doesn’t know what to do except cradle his head to her chest and cry with him, tears falling into his hair, tears for what they have had to endure, and what they might have endured together if their road didn’t end here, with their life forces dissolving amongst the bodies of Ben’s fallen knights, the reminders of his failed ambition to master the dark.

She doesn’t know how long they lie there, but as she feels both of their life forces fade, she thinks she’s okay with dying like this—her body tangled with Ben’s, knowing her friends and the galaxy are safe.

Just when she is about to wish herself back into that dark nothing where all was quiet and calm, Rey senses a soothing presence in the Force. She looks up to see a glowing figure squat next to them with kind eyes. The bearded man places a hand on Ben’s shoulder, and immediately, Ben’s breathing grows quiet and even.

“When a friend seeks to destroy the light, he quickly becomes an enemy,” the man says in a smooth, measured Coruscant accent. He sighs before adding, “This is the way of a Jedi.”

Ben’s voice is thick with tears and muffled in Rey’s tunic when he finally speaks. “They weren’t my friends, really. They were never loyal to me.” He sniffs. “They were loyal to Palpatine.”

He nods. “Loyal to the dark side.”

Rey relaxes her arms to let Ben fall onto his back and look up at the Force Ghost dressed in Jedi robes like Luke’s. “Who are you?”

The man smiles, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “I was there when your mother was born. And your uncle.” He helps Ben sit up. “I hid them from your grandfather. It worked for a while, at least.” The old man shrugs and smiles. “But the Force often has other plans.”

Ben’s eyes grow wide with understanding. “Master Obi-Wan.”

“During the time that I was guarding Luke on Tatooine, I was known by another name. ‘Old Ben,’ they called me,” he says with a dry laugh. “That’s where the name comes from.”

When Ben does not respond, he adds, “You are my namesake, you know.”

“I didn’t--I didn’t know.”

“Your mother never told you?”

“She was busy with more pressing matters,” Ben spits. “She couldn’t even spare a moment to tell me who my grandfather was.”

Master Obi-Wan shakes his head and presses his lips together in mirth. “You might look like your father, but you remind me so much of her.”

In the light emanating from the kindly force ghost, Rey sees a tear drip from Ben’s trembling chin.

“During the first rebellion, she sent me a message inside a little droid. What was it?” Obi-Wan glances at the ceiling. “Well, I remember the last part. It said, ‘Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.’”

The old man looks at Ben expectantly. Ben stares back.

“Do you know _why_ she chose that name?”

Ben shakes his head, and Obi-Wan leans closer. “You were born at the end of the war, the same day the concordance was signed. I was watching from afar, but oh, I saw how much she loved you,” the old man says softly. “You were her last hope, her best hope, her most precious hope for preserving the light in the galaxy.”

A pang of grief hits Rey at the same time it hits Ben, and she feels fresh tears for Leia course down her cheeks as they cascade down Ben’s. She yearns for Leia’s quiet strength, kind voice, and tender eyes, so much like Ben. What would she say, if she were here now? Would she be pleased that Rey loved her son? Would she recognize him as the boy she raised who she thought had been lost to the dark?

“I let her down,” he finally chokes.

Obi-Wan radiates kindness as he places his hand on Ben’s shoulder again. “No.”

Suddenly, Rey feels the old man’s eyes move to her. He nods with a reverent expression when their gazes meet. “Rey.”

She presses her palms to the ground in an attempt to get up, but extreme pain slices through her head and she collapses onto her back, staring up at the darkness.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs. Ben scoops up her hand, concern in his eyes.

“You needn’t apologize to me, Rey.” The old man inclines his head. “I am indebted to _you_.” Obi-Wan’s gaze turns to Ben. “Both of you. You did something I should have done decades ago. You destroyed Sheev Palpatine.”

“Rey did it,” Ben mutters as he swipes at the wetness on his cheeks.

“I couldn’t have done it without you,” she whispers. Oblivion pulls at her mind, sleep beckons, but she forces herself to make sure Ben understands: “I was just about to give in when the bond connected.”

Obi-Wan smiles. “You see? You gave her hope.”

“Yeah, now look at us.” Ben laughs bitterly. “We’ve both been dead at least once today. In fact, we were having another go at it before you appeared.”

Obi-Wan gestures at Rey. “You must heal her.”

“I don’t know if I can.” Even through her waning consciousness, Rey can hear the tremor in Ben’s voice. “The Force is so hard to--”

Obi Wan smiles reassuringly and extends his hand. “As long as there is even the smallest hope, it’s not the end.”

Through the bond, Rey can feel Ben’s doubt as he slips his hand into Obi-Wan’s palm; at the same time, his other hand tightens around hers, and strength, contentment, and peace flow through him into her mind. She exhales and closes her eyes.

“It will be easier this time,” she hears Obi Wan explain. “Most of her life Force remains.”

Through her fluttering eyelids, she watches Ben suck in a breath and nod. She feels him begin rubbing her temples in tiny, soothing circles and wonders hazily how this is even the same man who had entered her mind little more than a year ago, picking through her memories as she struggled against his restraints.

“The Force--” Ben’s voice says with frustration. “It won’t--it won’t obey me. I’m not strong enough to direct it--”

“Palpatine drained you. But your connection remains. The Force itself willed it into being, and he could not destroy it.”

She senses Ben pause, let go of his efforts to wrangle the Force, to bend it to his will. His fingers rest on her hairline as he coaxes the bond wide open and centers himself, focusing on light and peace.

 _Stay with me_ , Ben murmurs. A growing serenity descends on Rey, and his fingers are the gentle expectation in the minutes before dawn, the anticipation of preparing a good meal with friends, the swell in her heart when he had assured her that she was not alone.

_When we get out of here, we’ll go somewhere warm and...and...watch the sunrise._

_**Where?** _

_Jakku’s not far from here...I’ve heard mornings there are lovely_ , he teases. _The scorching sun coming up over the barren wasteland—_

_**Absolutely not!** _

He must sense her gentle anger through the bond because he laughs out loud.

“Good,” Obi-Wan says. “It’s working. Your connection is strong, stronger than pain or sorrow or even death. Keep drawing on it.”

Ben’s voice is tender when he whispers again into her mind. _You’d love Chandrila…the smell of the sea, the green hills..._ _Or Naboo. It's gorgeous there, Rey. It's like a holovid set...so beautiful you can't even believe it..._

_**It doesn’t matter.** _

_Tell me where, sweetheart. Where do you want to go?_

Warmth soothes the pain in her ankle, travels up into her arms, then finally, spreads upward to her head.

_**It doesn’t matter as long as I’m with you. I’d follow you anywhere.** _

The Force flows through her again like a rushing river, lifting her, pushing her, allowing her to grasp it and enter it and bend it to her will.

_**Anywhere but Jakku.** _

Ben laughs again as Rey sits up and throws her arms around him, burying her head in his neck, pressing her nose into the soft skin under his jaw, pouring her love through the bond while the bright blue of his force signature pulses with happiness.

“Well done, master.”

Rey vaguely recognizes the deep voice coming from behind Ben, and glances up from his neck to see a blue light intensify and sharpen into the shape of the tall man who had helped her bring Ben back from the other world.

Obi-Wan sighs good naturedly and turns. “You always do this.”

“Aren’t you glad I’ve remembered how to properly address you after all this time?”

“I haven’t been your master for many years, Anakin.” He gestures at Rey and Ben, who disentangles himself from Rey’s arms and sits with his spine ramrod straight, wide eyes staring. “Besides, they did it themselves. They are a dyad, if you can believe it.”

“I know. They remind me so much of—“ Anakin shakes his head sadly. “I still feel Padme sometimes in the Force, like a soft breeze.”

Ben’s hands clench into fists and his whole body twitches before he blurts, “Luke was telling the truth? You died in the _light_?”

The glowing heads of the Force Ghosts turn to look at him.

“Yes, Ben,” Anakin says kindly. He looks to Obi Wan, who nods.

“My old padawan will guide you the rest of the way,” Obi-Wan says. “Remember, wherever you go, whatever you do, you will always have your connection--and the Force. It will be with you. Always.”

And with a slight bow of farewell, he begins to disappear, leaving nothing but a faint blue glow that finally, also, fades away.

Anakin turns and strides with elegant, powerful steps over the bodies and weapons of the Knights of Ren, his Force signature illuminating the long corridor ahead. Rey rises to follow before realizing Ben is still frozen where he sits, staring at his grandfather’s ghost in shock. She shakes his shoulder to try to break him out of his trance, before Anakin stops and turns. “Come.” He looks directly at Ben. “We have much to discuss.”


	5. Heroes and Villains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s been a year since I updated. Honestly, I had zero motivation to continue after TROS sunk in a little, and I’d be shocked if anyone reads this. HOWEVER, the Mandalorian has restored my passion for all things Star Wars! So, enjoy!

Once, Ben had idolized Luke Skywalker. 

He remembers as a child hearing tales from his parents about Luke’s daring exploits with the Rebellion, about his rare aptitude with the Force. One of his favorite tales was how Luke had concocted a massive plan to save his father from the carbonite in which he’d been imprisoned as a gift to Jabba the Hutt. (His father seemed to always have a twinkle in his eye when he spoke about the part where his mother allowed herself to be captured by Jabba. Ben didn’t find out why until he was much older, and he didn’t like to think about it.)

When Ben was quite young, Luke’s visits were far and few between; he was a very busy man after all, but when he arrived on Chandrila, he would regale everyone with stories about the Force, about exotic planets, about ancient Jedi.

Never, in all that time, did he tell the story that concerned him, and Ben’s mother, and Ben himself, most nearly.

The story of Darth Vader’s true identity.

Ben didn’t even find out about his grandfather until his trust in Luke had begun to erode, mostly due to Snoke’s ( _or was it Palpatine’s?_ ) manipulations, but also due to the fact that he had grown, almost halfway through his 20s, to discover that Luke was human after all. Yes, his uncle was gifted with the Force, but he wasn’t perfect. Far from it. He trusted too much. He refused to even acknowledge the dark side, let alone explain why exactly it was so awful. He let juice drip into his beard when he bit into a jogan fruit.

Of course, any lingering awe Ben might have had for his master and uncle was extinguished the moment Luke stood over him with a lit lightsaber and murder poisoning his Force signature.

Ben’s next master, Snoke, had seemed more promising, with a grand, self-possessed manner and a truly impressive strength with the Force. He knew things that Ben had never heard of, never dreamed possible. He seemed like he could give Ben everything he had ever wanted, and that he felt Ben was worthy of those things. But after years of abuse, culminating in Snoke’s endless provocations and commands to destroy everything Ben had ever loved, including his father and Rey, Ben had found himself disillusioned with Snoke, too.

So as he picks his way through the rubble of a Sith temple, following behind the ghost of his famous grandfather, Ben’s shock quickly gives way to a familiar, dull disappointment in yet another great man he had once admired.

In fact, what surprises Ben more than the idea that Anakin had turned out to be a flawed, incompetent idol, is the spike of absolute rage that suddenly shoots through Rey’s Force signature. She stops so abruptly in front of him that if he hadn’t been acutely attuned to her presence, he would have plowed into her and knocked her to the ground.

“Why didn’t you help him?” she cries, her voice just a notch below primal scream. “He called and called to you for YEARS. You could have simply appeared and told him you were redeemed!”

Her hands ball into fists at her sides as her whole body tenses. Looking at her like this, feeling her anger churn like a sandstorm in the force, makes him wonder if he has the same expression of admiration and desire on his face that his father always had when talking about Leia on Jabba’s sail barge.

“Do you know how much death and horror and turmoil that ONE conversation might have saved the galaxy?” she shouts at Anakin. “Answer me!”

Rey is a beautiful white-hot sun, a hypnotic ball of fire and danger, throwing off solar flares of disgust, burning with the strongest fire of anyone he has ever met. He thinks, with a pang of regret, that she would have made a perfect empress of the dark. But the idea gives way to a swell of guilt, hot and tight in his chest. Rey isn’t wrong; she knows his mind perhaps better than he knows his own. If Anakin’s Force Ghost had confirmed what Luke had tried to explain about the news of Darth Vader and his mother, things might have been different.

His eyes flick to Anakin, who has faced off with Rey across the ruins of a fallen Sith statue. After a moment of study, Anakin chuckles. “She _is_ a Palpatine, isn’t she?”

Rey seethes with dangerous fury and her body lurches forward as though she is about to attack.

Anakin’s face turns serious and he sighs. “I have no excuse.”

“Rey, it doesn’t matter,” Ben sighs, his voice resigned. 

Rey slaps a palm to her forehead, grumbling, “Stars, you are both idiots. OF COURSE IT MATTERS.”

Ben feels Anakin’s gaze on him. He explains, “I’m sorry. Your mother and I—“ Anakin hesitates and shifts a bit, crossing his arms over his chest, “we did not have the, uh, the best relationship in life. I captured her, I tortured her—I--” Anakin pauses and his brows draw together before he continues, “I made her watch while I blew up her planet with the Death Star.” 

Rey gasps, then shoots Ben a look. He knows she’s thinking about Starkiller. And he knows, just knows, that she wants to hiss that it all sounds terribly familiar. But their attention is drawn away when Anakin continues: “I wasn’t sure—“ Anakin stares into Ben’s eyes intensely, trying to will him to understand, “what she had said about me. If she had said horrible things...which were all true by the way...you might not have been very receptive to my presence.”

“She didn’t tell me a single thing,” Ben mutters. It takes a massive effort to shove down the gush of hurt and betrayal that rises from the old scab picked open by this conversation.

“So you were afraid,” Rey hisses through her teeth at Anakin. “I can’t believe you were ever a Jedi at all.” 

He smiles sadly. “As you can tell, I wasn’t a very good one.” 

He turns to continue down the corridor, and Rey clambers over the statue, practically breathing fire in her pursuit of him. Even with his long legs, Ben has to scramble to catch up.

“That doesn’t explain why you didn’t come when he called to you. When Snoke was abusing him, whispering lies. When he had your...your disgusting, twisted helmet that he worshipped on a literal pedestal. When he was trying to BE you, to finish what YOU started,” Rey yells at Anakin.

The ghost stops, but does not turn.

“But he DID finish what I started,” Anakin says. “You both did.”

“What?” Rey spits, anger shooting off her like sparks.

“Rey.” Gently, carefully, as if trying to tame a rabid Mynock, Ben steps close to her and places a hand on her arm. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” he murmurs, which has the intended effect of stopping her pursuit. He presses a kiss to her forehead and lets his gratitude, his pride, and his love seep through the bond. “It’s in the past, okay?” he whispers. “I made my own...awful choices. But that’s over. It’s over now. I just need to—“

Before he can say that he needs to find a way to atone, Anakin whirls around and the sheer power of his presence makes Ben want to draw back. “The Dark is very strong here,” Anakin says, glancing around, then at Ben. “We must keep moving.”

“This place is getting to you,” Ben murmurs, massaging the back of Rey’s neck and feathering several more kisses along her hairline. “We need to get you away from here.” He threads his fingers through hers and tugs. “Come on.”

When she resists and frowns at Ben’s attempts to tow her along, he cups her cheek tenderly and ducks his head to look in her eyes. “You know better than anyone that I can fight my own battles.” He smiles to show he appreciates her righteous anger on his behalf.

“He needs to explain himself,” she grumbles, but she lets Ben pull her around some fallen stones.

“This is what I meant, Rey,” Anakin says, watching them move forward and gesturing at their clasped hands. “The Jedi of old forbid attachments. I didn’t follow that rule, and my love became my weakness.” Here he pauses and his eyes grow sad. “I couldn’t save my wife. I couldn’t kill Palpatine. But you—“ he takes a step closer to them. “You _did_ , Rey. You finished him. And you, Ben.” Anakin beams at him now, and Ben’s heart lurches with astonishment that this great man, with a smile so much like Luke’s, might be praising him. “Your attachment to her, to your parents brought you back to the light. It gave you strength and courage. And it allowed you to do what I could not—save the woman you loved.” 

When Anakin’s words sink in, Rey buries her head in Ben’s shoulder in shame and understanding. All he can do is wrap his arms around her until he feels through the bond that her torrent of emotions begins to subside.

“I sensed Luke’s presence with you at first,” Anakin explains, finding Ben’s gaze over Rey’s bowed head. “I had so much faith in him to keep you in the light. But then...you were far too gone for me to get to you.”

Ben nods, tears filling his eyes once more that day. “I understand.”

“I wish I could have made your path smooth, my grandson. But that was not the Will of the Force,” Anakin says.

With a sniff, Ben wipes his eyes with the sleeves of his filthy sweater. The ghost waits and watches as Ben tightens his embrace around Rey and whispers soft words of encouragement in her ear.

“A dyad…” Anakin says, shaking his head as he watches. “Such a rare gift.”

Walking carefully with his arms still around Rey, Ben follows Anakin around a corner, and ahead, he can see the ruins of the main vestibule and the cracked stone that ascended and descended to ground level the first time he came here in pursuit of Palpatine. As they move closer to the exit, it is as though shades grab at his heels, hissing curses in Ancient Sith as he gets closer to leaving this place. Fear, doubt, and anger crawl under his collar, scrape at his mind. Rey whimpers, and he can feel through the bond that she senses the same assault.

“I’m so cold,” she whispers into his neck.

“Grandfather. The shadows...” Ben calls.

Over his shoulder, Anakin says, “I know. I feel it too. The Sith do not give up easily.” He points. “But this is the exit ahead. You’ve almost made it. Hold on.”

 _ **Almost there.** _He pushes the encouragement into her mind with a picture of a breathtaking red and orange and yellow sunset he had seen once over the grasslands of Lothal. The bond is silent for a moment.

Then, _I want a Lothcat for a pet. I’ve never had a pet._

Ben laughs out loud and feels the long arms of the darkness retreat a little, the shadows slithering back to cower along the wall.

_**Lothcats are nasty little beasts. But I’ll scour the entire galaxy myself to get you one.** _

Ahead, he sees Obi-Wan, glowing in the vestibule and nodding encouragement. Next to him, little Master Yoda says, “With you, the Force is. Stay strong, you will.”

Their appearance is like a burst of light in the darkened chamber. He gathers all the strength he can to pull Rey along with him by her clammy hand as he runs toward the vestibule. 

Soon, they reach the ruined entrance stone, Anakin stops, and Ben winces at the memory of falling here, desperate to get to Rey.

“This is where I must leave you.” Anakin glances upward. “You must use your bond if you wish to exit.”

Rey steps forward and says quickly, “Thank you. I shouldn’t have spoken to you the way I did back there, especially after you helped me—“ Rey’s voice chokes off and she slams up a mental shield so that Ben can’t guess what she had been about to say. 

With a small, kind smile, Anakin nods. “I understand the desire to protect those who we love.” He looks at Ben. “You are a true Jedi. Not only that, I—I—” Anakin’s voice breaks. “I see so much of Padme in you.”

“Thank you.” Ben squeezes Rey’s hand as emotions threaten to overwhelm him again. He’s lost count of how many times he has cried in the past hour. 

Anakin just smiles. “May the Force be with you both.”

As his ghost fades, another fainter blue outline solidifies near the huge slabs. Ben feels it immediately: the caress of a spring breeze on his face, the salt tang of the ocean, the scent of Corellian perfume, the strong arms around him, the bitter disappointment of loneliness and abandonment. 

Rey gasps and lurches forward. “Leia!”

Ben feels like he has been restrained with the Force. It’s a trick of the dark, he thinks bitterly. One last horrible gasp of the Sith to pull him back fully and forever into their ranks.

His ears ring with grief and shame, so that he only hears Rey’s chattering monologue to the Force ghost of his mother as a hum of unintelligible background noise.

Leia’s familiar voice cuts through all of it, finally sharpening his senses. “I’m glad you gave him a piece of your mind,” she says to Rey. “I’m still livid at him, even after death.” She shrugs and her voice takes on that flinty tone she uses when she’s being wry. “But I guess we have eternity to work it out.”

“He told us to use our bond to leave here,” Rey says. “What did he mean, Master Leia?”

 _Master_? Ben scrubs a hand over his face, huffing loudly at the honorific. It’s just another reminder that Leia was willing to train some random scavenger girl and not her own son; that his mother hated him so much that she had foisted him off at the first opportunity. 

He feels his mother’s eyes on him and he quickly casts his gaze to the floor, twisting his lips in various shapes. 

“A dyad,” Leia muses, shaking her head in disbelief. “I knew you shared some kind of bond in the Force. I didn’t realize the depth of it, though.”

At this, Ben erupts. “Yes, it’s quite poetic isn’t it? Your prized Padawan, your beloved Last Jedi, is forever bonded to the son you abandoned and disowned.”

“Ben,” Leia sighs.

The sound of his name from his mother’s mouth freezes the blood in his veins and squeezes his heart with grief. 

“I could have killed you a year ago, you know,” he spits, anger blurring his vision. The buzzing of darkness in his veins is familiar, like slipping on an old tunic. 

“Ben!” Rey’s admonishment sharpens the edge of his pain. “The dark is getting to _you_ now, you can’t—“

He flares his nostrils at Leia before loudly cutting across Rey’s words. “My finger was on the trigger. I sensed you and I know you sensed me. But I couldn’t do it.”

“What?” Rey cries. “Leia said you had fired on the bridge!” He feels her in his head, searching frantically for the truth of it. Again he ignores her, all of his attention focused on his mother.

Leia stares at him, her eyes steady and warm. Though they are blue and fuzzy, he can see them in his mind as they were in life, brown, warm, and intelligent. “You didn’t stop your TIEs from taking the shot, though. Why didn’t you call them off, Ben?” 

It’s like she has fired a laser cannon directly at his chest. He stumbles backward, filled with shame, eyes burning with unshed tears. Once he has recovered his ability to speak, he says coldly, “Well, you survived. It gave you time to train Rey, didn’t it?” His chin wobbles. “You never even attempted to train me in the ways of The Force, mother. Not even once.”

“Well,” Leia mutters dryly. “At least you’re calling me ‘mother’ again.”

As if seeing Ben’s anguish for the first time, her face softens and she says, “Would you have listened? Would you have obeyed me?”

Ben bites down hard on his bottom lip as the accusation hits home. He knows the answer to her rhetorical questions, knows that once more she has seen right through to the very core of him.

With a huff, he marches past her, past Rey without even a glance, and examines the huge pieces of stone. “I think we could climb out,” he announces to no one in particular.

“Do you have enough strength, Rey? You’ve been through so much,” he hears Leia ask gently.

“And I’ve been lounging on the shore of the Silver Sea sipping a Bespin Fizz,” Ben grits sarcastically. “Thank you for your concern, _mother_.”

He’s fully aware that he is acting like a bratty, jealous child. And he doesn’t care. The sooner he leaves this place, this vergence with its numerous ghosts who remind him of his failures, the better. 

He jumps up, using his fingers to catch the edge of a jagged chunk of stone. However, the attempt to pull his body onto the top of the stone seems to take monumental effort, and his feet scrabble for purchase on the smoothly hewn rock. Unable to use footholds to take some of the weight off of his shaking arms, his fingers slip and he falls.

The embarrassment and accompanying anger spike through his chest before he even feels his body hit the ground. He lets himself crumple up and closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to look at either of them.

“Ben!” A stab of panic through the bond, and he hears the thuds of Rey’s quick footsteps before he senses her crouching next to him.

“Can you feel him, Rey?” The genuine worry that emanates from his mother is another shock in a long line of surprises. “I already helped bring him back from the Dark Side and death today; I’d rather not do either again.”

“Yes,” Rey breathes, her hands on his shoulders, then his cheeks. “He’s alright. He’s--”

His dead mother’s concern, soft caresses from Rey’s fingers and mind, the reminders of everything he has been through in a single cycle: the weight of it all finally breaks him. He sits up, wraps his arms around his legs, looks at them both, then drops his forehead to his knees and sobs, grief and exhaustion and shame rattling his entire body.

Rey’s arms encircle him, squeezing tightly. “Oh Ben,” his mother’s voice murmurs from somewhere nearby. “Oh my darling. I wish I could hug you.” 

The soft whisper of a weightless hand touches his shoulder, and he knows it is her, reaching out from the Force, from beyond death, to try to comfort him.

It has taken him this long to understand that his mother had always loved him. Maybe she wasn’t good at being a parent, and maybe she had been preoccupied with her own goals, but the love was there this whole time. Sadness presses on his chest like a heavy weight at the realization that he knows this far too late.

Rey and his mother sit in silence, waiting for him to wring himself dry. Eventually Rey coaxes his chin up and wipes the wetness from his cheeks with her fingers and his sobs ebb to quiet tremors. 

“Mother.” Ben’s voice is thick when he addresses her.

“Yes,” she croons. “I’m here.” 

He looks up to see her brilliant blue form kneeling next to Rey. It takes everything he has in him to keep from breaking down again. 

“I--I saw him. I saw Dad. He--”

“I know,” Leia soothes, the corner of her mouth lifting in a little smile.

He shudders and swipes at the fresh tears that leak from his eyes at the echo of Han’s words on Kef Bir. “He might have been a memory, but—“ He can’t keep his chin from trembling when he says, “I think--I hope--he forgave me.”

“He did.” Leia smiles. “He loved you, Ben.”

The next words are the most difficult he has ever had to say. They stick in his throat and prick at his heart. Rey leans her forehead against his temple and murmurs through the bond, _Go on_. Into his mind, she pushes courage and affection.

Ben takes a deep breath and fixes his eyes on his mother’s face. “I hope--I hope you can forgive me, too,” he says, the words pouring out of him in a torrent of violent emotion.

Leia’s Force signature shines with unconditional love, love that he knows deep down he is unworthy of. “My last thoughts, before I felt myself slipping from life, were of you, my darling boy.” A whisper, like a butterfly wing against his skin, caresses his cheek through the Force. “You’ve come home at last. I love you, so much.”

Shuddering sobs wrack his body again as he examines her transparent, blue face through tears. Rey cradles his face to her chest, running a hand through his hair. He listens to her beating heart, and while he’s grateful for it, he wishes harder than he’s wished for anything before that his mother was the one holding him instead. He yearns to have had the chance to have this conversation when she was alive and breathing in front of him. He knows the time has passed, but he still longs for it with an aching soul.

“It’s all right, Ben,” Leia murmurs, and he wonders if she can read his thoughts. “It’s all right, my darling.” 

When his tears finally subside, she smiles gently. “Now. It’s time for you to leave this place. I feel the cold and the dark that’s gathering here.” She glances around, frowning. 

Her attention turns to Rey. “Find a flat stone and levitate it, just like you did with the rocks on Crait. However, make sure Ben is on it. Lift him to the surface. He must do the same for you from above.”

Rey opens her mouth to protest, to explain how exhausted and weak they have become and how slippery the Force feels in this place, but Leia shakes her head, anticipating the argument. “You have the strength within you,” she says, slowly and deliberately, imbuing each word with unshakable confidence. The certainty of her demeanor clarifies for Ben why people would fight for any cause in which she believed, why they would follow his mother quite happily to their own deaths. 

“We’ll draw on the bond for power,” Ben muses. “Palpatine said it was--like life. And Obi-Wan said it would give us strength.”

“Yes, exactly,” his mother declares, her face shining with pride.

He nods at her, then disentangles himself from Rey’s arms to stand. He strides around, examining slabs of rock to find one that looks like it would be large enough to support a human and yet small enough to minimize the amount of effort required to raise both through the opening.

“How can I ever thank you, Leia? For everything, everything you’ve done for me,” he hears Rey say somewhere behind him. He senses the tears in her eyes as if they were his own. Maybe they are.

“My dear,” Leia says kindly. “I should be the one thanking you.” 

Ben’s eyes burn, but he doesn’t feel pain and jealousy anymore. He only feels overwhelming love for both of these women who cared for him when he didn’t deserve any of it. Then suddenly, the surface of a nearby rock seems to shimmer with bright blue glowing circles and lines. He thinks he has seen something like this in his travels with Luke, some kind of markings in the floor of an ancient Jedi temple. He blinks and looks again, and the strange markings are gone. 

“Rey,” he calls. “I found something.”

She jogs over to examine the stone at his feet. “This one will work,” she says, finding his eyes with a brilliant grin. “I feel it.”

“Well,” Leia says, with a fake cough. “Looks like you two don’t need me anymore. I’ll be off, just waiting around in the Force for some grandchildren.”

Rey’s cheeks turn pink and she drops her gaze to the ground, but Ben’s heart jolts at the thought of losing his mother again.

He walks back to her, desperation pulsing through his blood.

“Will I see you again?” he asks with a shaky voice.

“If the Force wills it.” She smiles sadly. “But no matter what, I will always be with you, Ben. Both of you.” She looks at Rey and then nods. “ _Always_.” 

With her last word, she begins to disappear, and Ben’s hand reaches out for her. He blames it on some inborn connection between mother and child; otherwise, why would he grasp for something his mind knows is not there?

He doesn’t know how long he stares at the spot where she had been. Only a warm nudge in the bond pulls him from his reverie. 

“Ben?” Rey says aloud. “I’m ready if you are.”

He takes a deep breath, strides back to where she stands, and steps onto the stone, smiling encouragingly at the girl who will lift him out of this dark, cold tomb into a new life.


	6. A Little Complication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Biting her bottom lip and writhing against Ben’s palm, Rey is vaguely aware of Finn’s question and the need for a response. In the whole galaxy, there is only Ben—his skin gliding over her hot, slick core, his chest, his heat, his lust, his breath, his lips. The gaping bond excludes most other sensations from her awareness.
> 
> Are you using the dark side on me?
> 
> He buries a laugh in her shoulder. No, but it feels sort of like that, doesn’t it? The rush in your veins. The primitive thrill deep inside you...
> 
> “Rey? Do you copy?” Finn tries again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fic earns its rating here! 
> 
> FYI - there’s a *hint* of orgasm denial and a dash of exhibitionist kink (if you can call fingering someone while they’re on a commlink with their friends exhibitionism. No one sees anything!) Tags have been updated.
> 
> Enjoy!

As soon as Rey’s feet hit dirt, she starts to run. 

With what limited strength she has left, she focuses her energy on her leg muscles, forcing them to propel her as quickly as possible from Palpatine and death and the Sith. 

She calls back over her shoulder, “How did you get here?”

Running a hand through his hair, brows knitted in confusion, Ben skids to an abrupt stop and shouts, “It was here before!”

“What was?” She turns and paces back to him, hands on her hips, catching her breath.

“Right there! Beside that old X Wing.” She cocks her head for an explanation, so Ben explains, “One of the TIE fighters from the Death Star.”

“How—“

“Just last week I reviewed TIE schematics before approving a resupply order for the Lancer-class frigates.” He laughs dryly. “Luckily the design has hardly changed in the past 30 years. I just had to tinker a bit to get it operable.” 

“Oh kriff,” Rey mutters. She doubles over with hands on her knees and gasps for breath.

She had actually forgotten, she can’t believe she was so _stupid_ as to _forget_ that she was keeping company with the Supreme Leader of the First Order, ruler of most of the known planets in the galaxy. This fact adds immense complications to their next move. Up until this point, she had been focused on simply making it out of the temple alive, with Ben’s sanity intact. She straightens and runs a shaky hand over her forehead before shouting, “FRACK!”

“Kriff and frack, indeed.” Rey follows his dark, sardonic voice to see him standing in a huge black scorch mark, surrounded by a smattering of twisted metal on the dry, cracked ground. “One of your Resistance friends is quite a good shot,” he says, mouth twisting with equal parts amusement and anger. 

She hurries over to the X-Wing and runs her hands over the hull, checking for scorch marks or shrapnel damage to the shields, when Ben from behind her, says softly, “We can’t go back to them, Rey.”

Resting her hand on the cool, pitted steel of the old ship, she sighs and closes her eyes. She knows he has a point. Poe would shoot him on sight. At the very least, grief for Leia might lead the rest of them to consider prison and a court martial. But she can’t show up to their victory celebration with their vanquished enemy unshackled and unpunished and gazing at him like he had hung every moon in the galaxy. She cycles through various possibilities in her mind, and she feels Ben there, lingering to reject each scenario. 

They obviously can’t go to any worlds with heavy First Order presence, and the Core Worlds are a bad idea as well, since most people there had likely seen Ben’s face numerous times on the Holonet over the past year. It would create too much of a scene if the Supreme Leader of the First Order was spotted wandering the markets and landing platforms of the Mid Rim with the Last Jedi. Even many of the Outer Rim worlds are dicey, though they’d probably have the best luck there. Going to the First Order is out of the question. Ben doesn't even know the current status of the organization following the mutiny of most of the officers in favor of Palpatine’s Final Order. 

Resting her forehead on the metal ship in a spasm of despair, she feels Luke’s presence in every rivet, in every molecule. What would he do? 

“I’ll tell you what he _did_ do,” Ben replies aloud, leaning over her and caging her body with his arms. “He deserted everyone. He left his friends and family when they needed him the most.” He presses his full red lips together in a frown.

“Ahch-To,” she murmurs. _It will work_ , she thinks. It’s not far, and it’s unpopulated and uncharted. No one could find Luke Skywalker. They wouldn’t find the Last Jedi or the Supreme Leader there, either. They wouldn’t even think to look.

Ben’s eyebrows fly up in surprise when he extracts the idea from the flow of her thoughts. “Where Luke exiled himself?”

She ducks under his arm and stalks around the X-Wing to check the other side for any residual damage from blaster fire or laser cannons. 

Though she doesn’t look back, she senses that he has followed her once more. He reclines against the hull with his arms crossed over his chest and watches her inspect the integrity of some hasty patches she’d applied before leaving for Exegol.

“The whole time, that island in your dreams was where Luke was hiding,” Ben muses to himself.

“I didn’t know that _then_ ,” Rey mutters, cheeks burning as she remembers the intimacy of the interrogation room. She pokes her head around the wing. “If it makes you feel any better, your ship is there.”

“Well, why did you come here in Luke’s ancient piece of junk?”

Cheeks burning even hotter at this question, Rey busies herself under the belly of the ship where she’s examining an electrical panel. “Yeah about that.”

He stoops under the hull. “Reeeeyyy.” In a deliberate tone infused with authority that reminds her so much of Leia it makes her fingers almost tear apart a power coupling, he asks, “Where. Is. My. _Ship_?” 

“Um…” She looks at him, then glances away. “Let’s just say it’s permanently inoperable.”

Pinching the bridge of his nose and glancing skyward, Ben sighs heavily. “Mother of Kwath, Rey. You’ve now destroyed _two_ TIE Whispers. Do you know how many credits they cost?”

She scrabbles out from under the X-Wing and stalks over to him, glares up into his face, and grits through clenched teeth, “Everything we’ve gone through today, and you’re worried about ships and credits?” She pokes a finger into his massive chest. “Are you _sure_ you’re not planning to go back to the First Order?”

Ben starts as if she has driven a lightsaber through his side again. “Of—of course not!” He takes a step backward. His mouth opens, he hesitates, then he mumbles, “It’s just that the TIE Whisper is a highly sophisticated—"

She throws her hands in the air and swings a leg up to climb into the cockpit. “You’re ridiculous, utterly ridiculous.”

“The ship is just…” He sighs. “We might need to fight our way out of this sector. With the Whisper I could protect you much better than...” He breaks off, glancing over the length of the X-Wing with a wrinkled nose. “... _this_ _thing_. Are the guns even operable?”

“You don’t think I can defend myself?” She shouts, preparing to hop into the cockpit and toying with the idea of leaving him behind. “Do you know me at all?”

“I know you.” His voice is deep and throaty. A tug on the bond alerts her that his shields are down, inviting her to access his mind. Rey frowns and looks at his open, gentle face staring up at her. With a sigh, she closes her eyes and allows his thoughts to waft over her like a breeze. He exhales slowly, and Rey senses regret for the turn their conversation has taken. She senses fear, love, gratitude, pride, and sorrow, and some images that make Rey blush at their forceful passion. 

Nowhere in all of these emotions does she sense a desire to return to the First Order. She only senses his aching, all-encompassing need to be with her, regardless of where they go in the galaxy. There’s also a steely resolve about Ahch-To, as if he’s preparing himself for a battle. For her. He will walk into this battle with his past for _her_.

She jumps down, stalks over to him, and balls his sweater in her fist. Once she’s kissed him breathless, she draws back and mutters, “You’d better get in first.”

It takes a slight bit of maneuvering for Ben to fit in the cockpit. His knees, naturally, mash into the instrument panel, so he must draw them up almost to his armpits to get them on the pedals. When Rey drops herself onto his lap, her ass slides down the slope of his thighs to nestle right against his crotch. She spreads her legs, draping them over the outside of his and mashing her own knees against the side panels in order to have room to reach down between both of their legs to grip the control stick. 

“Oh, um, sorry,” she mutters in response to his little sharp intake of breath when she presses down into his lap to shift her weight.

“’S all right,” he mumbles, the words tickling her ear and sending tingles through her limbs.

He points at the wayfinder that she had patched into the nav computer with some wires from his Whisper. “Clever,” he murmurs.

“Yeah,” she says as she unhooks the pyramid and holds the base in her palm. “I copied the set up from your ship.”

“I know.” Carefully, he takes it from her hand. She busies herself with reconnecting the wires that had been displaced and shoving them back into the nav computer panel. He holds the wayfinder up next to his face, peering into its green, glowing depths. Then, with a sudden, violent snap of his arm and wrist, he chucks it as far away from them as possible.

The action is so unexpected that Rey bursts out in laughter, and Ben starts laughing too. The sound is higher than she had expected, but deep bodied, rumbling in his chest and bubbling up from a place of genuine joy. It reminds her that they have made it out _alive_ , they are together, and they are more or less whole. 

“Mother of Kwath, Ben,” she teases. “That’s _two_ Sith Wayfinders you’ve destroyed today.”

“Sweetheart, I’m never coming back to this karking dirthole again,” he declares. 

As Rey laughs again, the bond flies open so completely that she doesn’t know what is his mind and what is her mind, what is her body and what is his body, his breath or her breath. The rigid heat that she feels pulsing and growing along his right thigh echoes back to her groin in waves. The transparisteel canopy lowers and locks, and Ben’s lust rolls in dark clouds over the horizon between their minds.

Rey attempts to begin the pre-flight sequence, when a hand trails up her arm, playing with the leather band that covers the scar she earned in Snoke’s throne room. It slips over her shoulder, tightens fingers lightly on her throat, and then ghosts across her collarbone and dips down, brushing the tops of her breasts. 

“Let me get this thing off the ground,” she manages to mutter with a shaky little laugh. 

Rey closes her eyes and takes deep breaths as he snakes an arm around her waist and pulls her spine closer to his chest. He whispers her name, and then feathers his lips over the sensitive skin under her ear.

Every emotion reverberates through the bond, ping ponging back and forth, lifting her higher than the repulsors push the ship into the air. She reaches behind with a free hand and grips the nape of his neck, sighing with each little kiss he presses down the line of her jugular.

“All I feel is you,” he breathes into her neck. 

Rey has to pinch the bond closed on her end just to hold their course steady as the ship prepares to break atmo. But she cannot resist leaving a small trickle of sensation open to feel the yearning and desire that leaks from Ben’s mind, his need to celebrate their aliveness. Even _this_ isn’t close enough for him, she realizes with a jolt. 

Just then, his massive hand comes up to her right breast, lifting it, weighing it. He squeezes experimentally, then his thumb grazes down over her nipple and she gasps, the ship rattling along with her whole body as they emerge into the black. 

His Force signature spikes with what Rey recognizes as pure lust. The feeling, as it trickles into her mind, makes her want to rub her thighs together, to find some friction and relief, but her legs must stay open wide to provide access to the control stick. His breath is hot and fast on the back of her neck.

Suddenly, her attention (or perhaps it’s Ben’s; they are so tangled now that she can’t discern) snaps to the scanners. Ships glow forth around them, and pings indicate they are being hailed.

“Laser cannons?” he whispers, voice cracking as his hand leaves her breast to wrap around hers on the control stick, and...it’s so, so close to where she wants it. The heat of this discovery burns in her chest, her neck, her cheeks.

“Armed,” Rey chokes. 

“Good.” His voice is all velvet darkness, like the depths of the void spread before them.

With trembling fingers, Rey reaches out to press the comm button and acknowledge the other ship. At the same time, her hips subconsciously rock forward until the damp crotch of her leggings presses against the sharp knuckle of Ben’s thumb, sending a bolt of pleasure straight to her core, but also nudging the control stick in a jolt of acceleration that throws his body forward into hers. Tightening his fingers, he pulls back on the stick, easing the ship to a slower velocity in a smooth, measured deceleration that gently pushes her body back to recline against the wide expanse of his chest. Depressing a button on the control stick interface, he locks in a cruising speed before his hand comes to rest on Rey’s thigh.

Ben’s muscles stiffen as he scans the comm screen. “That’s the Falcon’s code.”

Aching and shuddering in the very center of her body, Rey has to immerse herself in the Force to calmly accept the waiting transmission. 

“Rey!” Finn’s voice, half-cloaked in background noise of shouts and cheers, rattles from the cockpit speakers. “We did it, Rey!”

“Finn!” she cries, trying to match the excitement in his tone. “It’s so good to hear from you! Palpatine is gone, Finn. He’s gone forever.”

She hears a muffled version of his voice repeating the news about Palpatine. A flurry of static, and a loud cheer goes up from Finn’s end of the link. “What about Kylo Ren? Do you know his status? We saw him leave Kef Bir in a TIE fighter.”

Ben’s fingertips dent the flesh of Rey’s thigh almost painfully . 

**_Breathe_ **, she urges through the bond. 

“He’s gone, too,” she says to Finn. “Dead. I—I can feel it.”

Ben's face burrows into the junction of her neck and shoulder, and she senses him inhaling her, clinging to her Force signature like a raft as another raucous cheer pours from the speakers.

“Rey, I was so worried, I felt...” Finn cuts out for a moment before he continues, “...well I was wrong, because I’m talking to you right now!”

Rey closes her eyes at the feeling of Ben’s soft lips on the exposed skin of her shoulder. 

Another indicator beeps, signaling they’ve been hailed by a different ship. As soon as Rey accepts this transmission, Poe shouts, “REY! I hear you took out Old Palpy and Ren! Get this! People are rising up all over the galaxy. They’re attacking First Order ships _everywhere_! We were the spark! We did it, Rey! We won!”

“Poe—that’s—that’s fantastic!” She manages to grit out as Ben’s hand slides between her thighs. 

There’s a slight pause, then Poe’s more somber voice crackles over the comm, “I just wish Leia was here to see it.”

Fresh grief, fresh anger, and fresh regret throb into Rey’s heart from Ben’s end of the bond. Her eyes—or maybe _his_ eyes—screw shut for a moment to contain a wellspring of stinging tears. 

“I know,” Rey says gently. “But, I’m sure she is with us. After all, no one’s ever really gone.”

A tendril of gratitude brushes her end of the bond. She squeezes his thigh in a little gesture of reassurance, but it seems to have the opposite effect, fanning the flames of his lust for her. 

Under her backside, she can feel the growing, twitching, pulsing evidence of his need. 

**_Ben, I want you—_ **

A crackle from Poe’s comm, then he says, “Wow. You’re a real Jedi now, huh?” 

He doesn’t wait for an answer before continuing: “Well, let’s rendez-vous back on Ajan Kloss. We need our Jedi to be there for the big celebration. I’ve got a whole case of Tsiraki I’ve been saving for this!”

“Oh,” she manages to sigh as one of Ben’s hands works its way under the waistband of her leggings.

_Ajan Kloss? So that’s the location of the Resistance base._

Finn breaks in, “We’re gonna party tonight!! Wooo!!”

“That sounds--" she chokes on the last word when something wetter and warmer than a pair of lips trails down her throat: Ben’s tongue.

_You’re mine, now. And I’m yours. We won’t hide from each other ever again._

**_Don’t ever leave me,_** she begs. **_I need you near, always._**

Finn’s voice breaks through to prod, “You’re coming, right?”

_Not yet_ , _but soon,_ Ben quips in her mind. She senses his smirk as his fingers creep closer to her center, skimming over skin and hair that no one but she has ever touched. 

“I—I have something I need to do first,” she pants. 

Poe’s sigh can be heard loud and clear over the comm. “Let me guess, Jedi stuff?”

Slowly, lazily, Ben circles her clit with a fingertip, and laser cannons fire all through Rey’s body.

“Yes,” she hisses.

**_Don’t stop, Ben. It feels so go—_ **

“Don’t stay away too long,” Poe mutters before signing off. 

Ben, who is clearly taking wicked delight in stoking Rey’s arousal while she tries to speak with her friends, sucks her earlobe between his teeth and _tugs_.

At first, she isn’t sure if the choked moan that escapes her lips is audible or confined to the bond, until Finn comms, “Rey...are you okay?”

Biting her bottom lip and writhing against Ben’s palm, Rey is vaguely aware of Finn’s question and the need for a response. In the whole galaxy, there is only Ben—his skin gliding over her hot, slick core, his chest, his heat, his lust, his breath, his lips. The gaping bond excludes most other sensations from her awareness.

**_Are you using the dark side on me?_ **

He buries a laugh in her shoulder. _No, but it feels sort of like that, doesn’t it? The rush in your veins. The primitive thrill deep inside you..._

“Rey? Do you copy?” Finn tries again, just as Ben’s long, thick finger slides downward through her wet folds. 

_I want you to feel this way all the time._

“Rey? Red Five? _Rey_? I said, do you copy?” The growing fear in Finn’s voice snaps her back to a modicum of coherence.

When she presses the comm button to respond, Ben’s finger presses up inside of her, making her muscles clench. 

“Caraya’s soul, Rey,” he mutters aloud. “You’re so _tight_.”

Finn's voice crackles again. “Rey? You’re really worrying me now. I thought I heard a different voice…”

Horror slices through Rey like a laser knife. Ben quickly withdraws his finger, but cups his palm over her dripping sex and tickles the little hairs behind her ear with shallow, quick puffs of breath.

“That’s odd.” Rey says to Finn, drawing on the Force to infuse calm into her words. “Must have been signal interference.”

Ben plunges a finger inside of her again, and it’s like being hit by an inverted version of Force lightning, an electric shock of pleasure that shoots from his finger straight through her stomach to the roots of her hair. 

“Are you sure everything is okay?” Finn says, voice creeping toward full blown anxiety.

_Is it okay?_ He taunts in her head, knowing full well that it’s more than okay, that Rey is close to absolute ecstasy.

“I’m just...tired.” She finally manages to mumble to Finn. It’s the actual truth, she thinks. But with Ben inside of her and the bond sparking like a live wire, sleep seems impossible. “But I—I promise I’m fine. We’ll see each other soon, okay, Finn?” 

“All right. Take care of yourself, Rey.” He hesitates and then adds, “May the Force Be With You.”

Rey’s heart sings with affection for her friend, for all of them, as she shuts down the comm. 

But she knows that right here, merging into Ben, is where she’s meant to be. He nuzzles his nose into her neck, reflecting the sentiment back to her. 

“Should we make the jump?” He purrs into her ear at the same time his thumb applies pressure to her clit, stoking the fire inside of her into a concentrated white-hot flame.

**_Kriiiiffff_** , she groans, **_I—can’t—I—can’t even think._ **

He chuckles a little. With another small nip to her earlobe, he thrusts his finger all the way inside of her, up to the last knuckle, and murmurs, “What are the coordinates, sweetheart?” 

“Ohhh, Ahhh—“ Rey shudders and tries to remember what numbers are, what anything is beyond him. She twists on his lap, straining her neck until she can catch his lips with her own. She plunges her tongue immediately into his mouth, initiating a battle that sets the thread of their bond ablaze . 

Eventually, they must stop to breathe, but the pause gives her time to gather her thoughts. She manages to remember the exact coordinates, and he plucks them from her head and begins programming Ahch-To’s location into the nav computer with one hand, while with the other, he holds his finger deep inside her, his thumb idly rubbing her clit. She whines and moans into his neck, moving her hips against his hand to chase release. Instead of indulging her, he holds his hand still and concentrates on the hyperspace engine, feelings stretching out for any flaws or problems in the ancient motivator. The old ship shudders as the drive gears up for light speed. 

With this task completed, Ben begins to thrust his finger in and out of Rey’s body, each upstroke building her closer to release. He adds another finger and gives her time adjust, then suddenly he curves against her inner wall, a simple gesture that erupts like a supernova at the core of Rey’s very being. He groans as the intense feeling dances back to him.

**_Again_ ** , she whines through the bond like a greedy child. **_Do that again._ **

Ben tenses his fingers the same way but this time he presses his thumb down on her clit, and the feeling is like heated rhydonium exploding between her legs. Everything flashes around her in bright blurring colors, and she’s out of control, stars exploding all around as she curves, contorts, and arches on top of him. He continues thrusting against this spot on her front wall, all the way through the apex of her pleasure. 

When she comes down, when she can breathe and think again, he gently withdraws his hand. Seizing his wrist, she wipes it on her wrappings before pressing a kiss to each bruised and battered knuckle. Then she cranes her neck to find his mouth once more. Their kiss is a hungry, desperate feast, the delicate swirls of her tongue serving to reinforce his desire. Instinctively, Rey lifts her hips off of his lap just enough to palm the outline of his erection through his pants. Ben sucks a breath sharply from her open mouth, shuddering as she begins to rub his length. 

Through the bond, his only thought is her name, repeated over and over in a desperate cadence. Both hands now on her hips, he pulls her straight down, grinding her against his lap. He thrusts up a bit, and Rey bears down with arms stretched behind her to clutch for leverage by holding onto the back of his neck. This position forces her spine to arch and her breasts to thrust outward, and he takes the opportunity to clutch and massage both of them while he pants and jerks his hips.

Through the bond, Rey passes an image of herself kneeling between his legs, tasting him, her tongue dragging up his length. The idea is somewhat vague because she has never actually experienced this herself, but she understands from listening to the girls gossip in the tents back at camp that this is what men want. There isn’t enough room on the floor of the cockpit to enact this fantasy, so instinct and the bond tell her that continuing to grind on his lap will do for now. 

With a loud sob, Ben bucks up at the same time her idea hits his mind. His climax ripples down the thread of the bond, bringing her over again with him.

Once both of their tremors ease, Rey lets the back of her head fall onto Ben’s shoulder. She is drowsy, warm, comfortable, though her leggings are damp and her undergarments twisted. He wraps his arms around her middle and sighs. She slides her fingertips over the back of his hand and shoves up into the arm of his sweater, gripping his elbow so their forearms press together inside of the loose black knit of his sleeve. He chuckles softly and drops a kiss on her cheek.

“I’m so grateful for you,” he mutters.

Engaged in a losing battle to keep her heavy eyelids open, Rey muses, “We will never have to be alone again. 

He tightens his embrace. “No, never again,” he whispers.

Drifting in his arms, gazing up at the blue blur of hyperspace through the transparisteel canopy, Rey lets the low hum of the sub light engine urge her to rest, and there is nothing else in the entire universe except Ben, under and inside and around her, and this ship that cradles both of them in its palm.

  
  



	7. Peace and Purpose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She takes a blanket from the small cargo hold of the X-Wing, before grabbing his hand and leading him to a path that winds down rocky cliffs, ending in a low, flat spot with easy access to a rocky beach. Near the water, there’s an old log, and off to their right stands the charred, hollowed-out husk of an enormous tree.
> 
> “Did you and Luke just go round setting things on fire?” He mutters, “I wish that had been my Jedi training.” He imitates Luke’s gravelly voice: “‘Go set that old stump on fire, Ben. Good. Now you’re a Jedi Knight!’”
> 
> This makes Rey laugh harder than he has ever seen. Her head flies back and she holds her stomach as her body shakes with loud guffaws. Her brown eyes dance with affection and amusement, and the knowledge that she can still laugh like that, that she can laugh at herself, after everything they’ve been through, feels a little like joy.
> 
> He shrugs. “He didn’t like it too well when I set his temple on fire.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ben shows his exhibitionist kink again, and there's some discussion of pain while losing one's virginity. 
> 
> Also, Ben gets a little turned on when Rey talks about stealing the Jedi texts from Luke. So there's that. lol
> 
> I hope you enjoy! 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!

The hyperspace exit alarm wakes Ben from a deep sleep. With a snoring Rey heavy and warm on his lap, and the slight rocking of the tiny old fighter as it bumps along through the hyperlane, Ben finally had finally allowed himself to relax for the first time in years. 

It takes only seconds for him to fall asleep.

As the alarm continues to blare, though, Rey stirs, then lifts her head from his shoulder just as Ahch-To’s coordinates flash on the nav computer screen and the ship jolts into realspace. Outside, the blue-green planet grows larger before them, and while Ben struggles to consciousness without caf, Rey guides the ship down through atmo where the strength of the Living Force, the Light _and_ the Dark, vibrates every molecule of Ben’s awareness. 

It makes sense that this is where Luke would come to hide, Ben thinks. That this is where he’d choose to die.

Rey points out a rocky, jagged island as it looms ahead on the horizon. White paths snake up and over the hills, and a group of circular stone huts crouch against the sea winds. At the very top, a promontory juts over the ocean, and an opening high on the cliffside indicates access to some kind of hidden chamber.

Rey circles the X-Wing to land in a relatively rocky outcrop halfway between the water and the summit of the hill. The landing sequence deploys the three stabilizers and Rey puts the ship down for a soft, steady landing. 

It shouldn’t surprise him that she’s such a good pilot, but he hasn’t really thought about it before. He hasn’t really had time to consider much about her at all. Now, though, he wants to know every single little thing.

Tightening his arms around her waist, he whispers, “Like taking clams from a Gungan,” before brushing a kiss onto the nape of her neck. 

The shiver that travels through Rey’s body extends back to Ben through the bond and she _giggles_ (Ben can’t believe he could ever be the reason _anyone_ would giggle) and it’s the most marvelous, musical sound he’s ever heard in his whole life.

As soon as the canopy opens, Rey pops up to climb down the wing of the ship. Ben flexes his leg muscles, which are sore from an entire cycle spent climbing, running, and fighting, followed by hours in the cramped cockpit of this X-Wing. Remembering what had happened as they entered hyperspace, he shifts his hips on the seat and feels that his undergarments are sticky and damp. 

Ignoring the discomfort, he closes his eyes and inhales the humid, salty air, like he’s breathing for the first time. _Life_ \- there is abundant life all around on this planet - beneath, above, within him, within her. He senses other life forms, small ones, shuffling around on the hills and paths, and larger ones, swimming through the sea, lounging on the cliffs. There is also death, though, the stench of decay and the smell of ash.

Through all of it, there is balance.

Rey’s force signature quivers like a flame in the wind. He opens his eyes and looks down to see her twisting her hands and shifting her weight from foot to foot. 

“Maybe, um, you should just keep your eyes closed.”

Gazing down at her, it’s hard to believe that only a handful of scant, standard hours earlier, he had awoken in his chambers on the _Steadfast_ with a resolute sense of purpose. In his dreams (or perhaps it was _her_ dreams), he had sat on the throne of the Sith, power coursing through his veins like the purest spice. And next to him, sat Rey--fierce, terrible, beautiful Rey--dressed all in black and seething with anger, hatred, and lust. He knew in this dream that they ruled the Dark together as equals and he knew that they would have complete dominion over the galaxy. But as he had awakened, he had felt Rey’s intention to seek the other Sith wayfinder and confront Palpatine herself, and he knew that this was the moment. He had dressed with an unshakable belief that the day he put on this tunic, these boots, would be the day that Rey would join him. On his way to Kef Bir, using her Force Signature as a lodestar, he mused on the irony of her search for her grandfather’s wayfinder, just as he had searched for his own grandfather’s version on Mustafar.

No, Ben had not foreseen the day ending like this. But he would not have it any other way.

Down below, she looks so earnest and sweet, with a little worry line between her eyebrows, and her top teeth pressing into her bottom lip. Gingerly, he pushes himself up and out of the cockpit, each movement amplifying every ache and bruise. 

With stiff legs, he lowers himself down from the wing before striding over to her and gathering her into a hug. She softens a little bit and lets out a small, strangled sigh as her hand comes up to cover his heart.

“Please don’t be angry,” she whispers.

In the middle of the embrace, his eyes wander over her shoulder and he sees it all at once - the octagonal, splintered transparisteel cockpit viewport sitting right in the middle of the blackened, twisted ruin of what used to be his beloved TIE whisper.

There is a moment of grief for his old life, for the power for which he had given up everything, but quickly the regret is replaced by only gratitude. _Kylo_ would have been extremely displeased, and probably would have destroyed the X-Wing behind them with his cross guard saber. He is grateful that is not him anymore, grateful for the knowledge that everything he is now, everything he wants to be, will make Rey and his parents proud. That ship was just a symbol of everything that had hurt the people he loved.

“I’m not angry,” he murmurs. She searches his eyes, reaching out with the bond to gauge his true feelings. She floats him the memory of his exasperated oath on Exegol when she had admitted that she had crashed it. 

But Ben smiles, opens his feelings to her, and then feathers a kiss on her forehead. “It’s not important anymore. It was stupid to care about it at all…” he hesitates, searching in her eyes for the right words even though he knows she will feel the sentiment before he can make the sounds come out of his mouth, “...the only thing I truly care about is you.”

For a heartbeat, she simply stares and he wonders if she heard him at all. But then, all of a sudden, Rey _shines_ in a dazzling burst of light that almost knocks him off his feet. Her arms squeeze around his waist, stealing the breath straight from his lungs. He pulls back from her embrace to clutch her face between her hands and kiss her as hard as he can, and with their lips pressed together and their tongues exploring each other’s mouths, they’re the twin suns of Tatooine, burning bright and hot, radiating light across everything on this planet.

In his ardor, his hand pushes up under her tunic, but she shudders away from his touch, breaking the kiss. With swollen lips and pink cheeks, she says, “I—I want to do that but...I feel so...the dust of that horrid Sith temple is all over me.”

Ben glances about them languidly. “I don’t suppose there’s a fresher nearby.”

Rey shakes her head and smiles, making Ben marvel anew at her dimples. She takes a blanket from the small cargo hold of the X-Wing, before grabbing his hand and leading him to a path that winds down rocky cliffs, ending in a low, flat spot with easy access to a rocky beach. Near the water, there’s an old log, and off to their right stands the charred, hollowed-out husk of an enormous tree.

“Did you and Luke just go round setting things on fire?” He mutters, “I wish that had been my Jedi training.” He imitates Luke’s gravelly voice: “‘Go set that old stump on fire, Ben. Good. Now you’re a Jedi Knight!’”

This makes Rey laugh harder than he has ever seen. Her head flies back and she holds her stomach as her body shakes with loud guffaws. Her brown eyes dance with affection and amusement, and the knowledge that she can still laugh like that, that she can laugh at _herself_ , after everything they’ve been through feels a little like joy.

He shrugs. “He didn’t like it too well when I set his temple on fire.” 

As his attempts at humor usually do, this comment ruins the mood and Rey suddenly becomes somber.

“That was in the past,” she says softly. “We’re starting over. Right now.” 

She begins tugging off her boots and gestures to the tree with one of them. “I dunno what happened. That’s where Luke kept the Jedi texts, but I stole them before I came to you on the _Supremacy_ and it didn’t look like that then.”

Now it’s Ben’s turn to laugh. “You _stole_ them?” 

He is overcome with awe, but Rey looks nonplussed as she untwists her arm wrappings. “Yes. Luke wasn’t going to teach me so I had to do something.”

“So you just stole them.” He chuckles to himself as he sits on the log and begins pulling off his own boots. “Where are they? With the—“ Ben fights to keep his voice neutral for the last word— “ _Resistance_?”

“Yes,” she says, hands hesitating on the waistband of her pants. “I’ll retrieve them soon.”

He nods before pulling his sweater up over his head. He thinks he hears Rey give out a little gasp. 

“I’ll just, um, I’ll—“ She half-turns, face red and chest flushed crimson. She glances over her shoulder like she’s thinking about running away down the beach. 

It occurs to him that she’s never seen a naked man, and no one has never seen her naked either. Curiously, carefully, he reaches out with his mind, caressing hers to confirm his suspicions. Immediately, he senses that she wants very badly to see him, _all_ of him, but she’s worried that _he_ will be embarrassed. His voice flashes up from deep within her memory: “ _I’d rather not do this right now._ ” She is also nervous about his gaze on her, that she won’t live up to his expectations. 

“I don’t mind,” Ben murmurs aloud. “And I think you’re absolutely perfect. But I’ll turn around until you’re in the water, okay?”

Her shoulders sag in relief and he turns his back to her, busying himself with unfastening his pants. In one motion, he rids himself of them along with his sticky underwear, and steps out, careful not to scrape his feet on the jagged rocks. He feels no shame in standing stark naked only a few meters from Rey. It even emboldens him when he senses her sneak a peek at him over her shoulder and feels the shadow of her lust through the bond. Balling his clothes up in his hands, he carries them to the water line, where he squats and scrubs a rock over his submerged pants to wash away the dust, dirt, and blood. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her slight frame hunched over in an echo of his own posture as she uses a rock to scrub water into the fabric of her breastband. Every single rib is visible under her skin, and her breast flattens against her tan, muscled thigh. He holds this image in his mind, gently reassuring her through the bond that he can’t see anything except this, that she’s beautiful and perfect. He also sends a little pulse of righteous anger.

_I would have given you everything, Rey. I would have found you and taken you from that rock years ago. You deserved the finest houses and clothes and meals..._

She turns her head to find his eyes. She’s so fierce and gorgeous that Ben has to put a palm down on the rocks to steady himself.

_You’re the heir of Palpatine. Granddaughter of the emperor. Everything is yours by right, anyway._

“I have everything,” Rey declares aloud.

Her sudden outburst surprises him at first. But with her defiant stare and her cheeks growing even redder, she doesn’t even have to say the other three words that dance through her mind, because the emotion lights up the bond like a sunrise. Ben feels it bloom in his chest, and he sends it back to her, amplified and strengthened. 

Rey grins at him, the warmest, sweetest smile he’s ever seen in his whole entire life, and then she goes back to scrubbing her clothes.

After he has finished scrubbing his garments, Ben drapes them on the log to dry in the sunshine. The whole time he does this, Rey keeps her eyes studiously fixed on a pernicious blood spot on her tunic, slamming a rock over and over against it. 

The stain won’t come out, not without a sonic washer and a cleaning droid, but she looks determined and a little angry, so he keeps that thought to himself, setting it behind a mental wall so she can’t access it. 

He watches with his hands on his hips and it occurs to him that he hopes she will look up and see his naked body; he needs to feel that spike of her desire again, like when she had seen him take off his sweater just now. But she seems to sense his stare, and redoubles her attention on her tunic, biting her lip and rubbing the fabric even harder.

Ben smiles at her stubbornness as he wades into the ocean. The cold slices into his calves almost painfully, but it is like a caress compared to Snoke’s old tortures. As his skin adjusts to the chill, he eases in farther, eyes on the horizon. The opaque blue water rises to his knees, then his hips. Small piscean creatures swim all around him, little dots of life in the Force. Once he is in the water up to his hips, he turns back to the shore.

_You should come in._

As this thought reaches her mind, her head flies up, but she doesn’t move from her crouched position. 

He laughs out loud. _I’ll turn around again._

**_It’s not that, it’s—I can’t swim._ **

“It’s easy,” he calls. “I’ll teach you.”

Ben sends her memory after memory of summer afternoons in the Silver Sea of Chandrila, as he splashed around, watching his mother as she taught him strokes she’d learned as a girl on Alderaan, laughing as he raced her back to shore where his father lounged with Chewie. Rey receives them with surprise and wonder, but also a sharp stab of grief that echoes back to Ben.

To distract himself, and if he’s honest, to show off a little, he dives in, arching down into the water with arms outstretched. He strokes effortlessly along the beach, staying parallel to the shore. 

After a few laps back and forth, he kicks down to plant his feet on the rocky bottom and shakes his wet hair out of his eyes. He’s surprised to see her standing nearby in waist deep water, shivering with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Will you show me how to do that?” 

He grins and says, “First, you need to get used to the water.”

Barricading his intention from her, he slowly draws his arm back, then suddenly snaps it forward to slice his flattened palm across the surface, forcing the water up into a wall that splashes straight into Rey’s arms and face.

Her eyes fly open in shock. Laughing, Ben ducks down so that only his eyes and nose are above the water to await her wrath and the retaliation that he knows will be coming. It isn’t until he’s distracted by little sparkling droplets that roll alluringly down her chest that she strikes, smacking the water with a loud clap and summoning a wave that flies into his eyes and up his nose. 

Rey laughs, and then it’s a full-on water fight, each person doing their utmost to fully surprise—and soak—the other. He tries to sneak a peek at her exposed chest, but every time he attempts to open his eyes, she smashes a perfectly timed sheet of water into his face so that he cannot see a thing. They laugh and shriek and shout, play-fighting so long that some large avian creatures come down to the shore and cluck and gesture at them. 

Rey begs a temporary truce to explain that they are called the Caretakers. 

“They hate me,” she sighs to Ben, pushing wet strands of hair off her forehead. Then she shouts over her shoulder, “Bugger off, please!” 

“I wonder why,” Ben quips when she turns back around. Rey half laughs, half screams and then pushes a wall of foamy salt water straight into his laughing face. 

Rey is winning their water battle until her foot slips on a slimy rock, the misstep knocking her off balance and sending her head and body under the water. Ben senses the mishap a fraction of a second before he sees it, and immediately lunges toward her, wrapping his arms around her frame and dragging her above the water before she can start to panic.

Sputtering and coughing, Rey clings to his neck. She buries her head in his shoulder while he runs a calming hand over her wet hair, cradling her body close to his. “You won,” she mutters.

“Eh, it wasn’t a fair fight,” he says with his lips against her hairline. “I had the high ground.”

Rey chuckles, then sucks in a little breath. Just like him, she has suddenly realized how close their bodies are, with nothing between them but a bit of salt water and air. She trails her fingers down his chest, continuing to follow the line of his pectoral muscle down into the water. Ben freezes as her fingers on his nipple send tingles through his entire midsection. The direction of her hand, as it continues moving down over his stomach, over his ab muscles, kindles a fire of anticipation that makes his cock twitch against her thigh. He knows she has felt it when she gasps slightly and finds his eyes. 

His first thought, based on her earlier trepidation, is that she will pull away. But her hand stays low on his stomach, and her body edges closer until her breasts press against his skin. 

For a moment, Ben cannot breathe. He thinks he will take her right here in the ocean where he stands. He will plant his feet on the rocks and use the Force to keep himself upright. She will wrap her legs around his waist and he will enter her…

His train of thought is interrupted by her mouth on his, sweet and soft and urgent. It takes a moment to gather himself, before his hands cup her round, lush ass to urge her legs around his hips. She moans as the sensitive spot between her thighs makes contact with his erection. With so many points of contact between their skin, the bond blurs into a supernova of energy. His whole awareness has become not just her, but the _oneness_ into which they have begun to blur. 

An appalling shrieking and squawking cuts through the buzz in Ben’s mind. Rey’s legs suddenly draw back into her own space, floating down until her toes touch the rocks on the bottom. Just to be safe, though, she keeps her arms around his neck. 

Ben spins them around so that they can both see what makes the horrific sounds. It’s the Caretakers on the shore, shrieking and gesturing as a flock of smaller, pudgier avian creatures waddle around near their feet. The Caretakers’ obvious agitation has whipped the little birds into a frenzy, as they squeak and flap their wings.

“Alright! Alright!” Rey shouts. “We’ll go to a hut.” Their squealing reaches a fever pitch. “Where else do you expect us to go?” She yells, emphatically smacking a hand on the water. 

As they start to make their way to shore, Ben promises to teach her to swim another time, and nuzzling her face into his neck, she promises to beat him in another water fight. 

The Caretakers still stand frowning on the shore, hands on hips.

“He’s a Visitor, okay?” She calls. “He’s been at sea and…” she breaks off. “Could we get some _privacy_ , please?”

The Caretakers frown, but with reluctant squeaks, they turn and walk away, herding along the strange smaller birds, which, Rey explains, are called porgs. Ben can sense she’s about to add something about Chewie, but she quickly throws up a barrier, apparently deciding he’s confronted enough ghosts of his past for one cycle.

When the Caretakers have gone, Ben brings her to the shallows, and Rey disentangles herself to rise and walk out of the ocean. Ben crouches to watch transfixed, as her perfect, golden form emerges like some kind of ancient marine goddess, her bare skin sparkling with water droplets as she walks, hips swaying, to where her clothes are spread on the rocks. If she senses him watching her, she doesn’t react.

After a moment of willing his erection to abate, he stands and walks out of the water as well.

“You take the blanket,” she says without looking at him. 

“You can wear my sweater,” he replies, taking it off the log and holding it out to her. 

Again, without looking at him directly, she snatches it from his hand and quickly throws it over her head. On her slight frame, his sweater is functionally a dress. It falls down almost to her knees, and she rolls the sleeves as he scoops up her coarse brown blanket and wraps it around his shoulders like a cloak, holding it closed on one side with a hand. He slips on his boots and gathers his belt and garments, while she does the same. 

When he glances at her again, her head is down. It takes a second before he sees her examining the hole where his lightsaber had pierced him. It sits right over her hip bone, and she seems almost fascinated by it, running her finger around the edges of singed fabric. 

“That was an excellent riposte,” he says coolly. Her head flies up to look at him. “It was classic Vaapad. I was distracted, and you took advantage.”

Rey blinks at him for a moment, then straightens. “That wasn’t you,” she says. “That was Kylo.” She starts toward the path that they had taken from the X-Wing, so he follows, admiring how the fabric of his sweater stretches and morphs over the curves of her ass as she climbs.

“What if I told you that a part of me will always be him? Just as a part of him was always Ben Solo.”

Immediately, she stops and her shoulders tense slightly. She glances behind and says: “I know.” She starts climbing again before she adds, “I don’t think I would want you any other way.”

After a quick stop at the X-Wing to retrieve some ration packs and their lightsabers, they continue to climb the hill until they reach the little collection of stone huts that Rey had pointed out from the air. 

“Ah!” Rey says as they round a little curve. “They’ve rebuilt it.” She grins at him.

He furrows his eyebrows in confusion. She disappears inside the doorway of one of the huts without any further explanation, so he has no choice but to follow, ducking through the low opening into a dark, circular room. Something about it seems familiar, like he’s been here before, but it’s strange because he knows he couldn’t have been. Nevertheless, he kicks off his boots, just as she had done, and walks a circle around the stone walls, watching Rey build a fire in the middle of the room and trying to place the feeling of recognition.

She glances up and asks, “Do you sense it yet?” 

“I sense _something_ , but I—“

A low stool, Rey’s beautiful face streaked with tears, the rough blanket now around his shoulders around _her_ shoulders. 

Her voice, through her memory, reverberates in his head: “...I had never felt so alone.”

Then, his own voice, as she heard it, a gentle, low murmur: “You’re not alone.”

With sudden understanding, his head snaps around to her and she nods. “This was the spot,” she confirms. 

The little fire crackles cheerfully, and her smile is bathed in its yellow light, just like her tears had been that evening when their hands touched from across the galaxy.

Overcome with emotion, he staggers over and lowers himself to the ground next to her. She leans into his shoulder and stares at the flame. “I told you that you would turn,” she teases as she hands him a ration pack. He chews and swallows dutifully without tasting, his mind occupied with turning over that touch and the vision that had led them to this moment.

“And you did stand with me,” he says finally. “The Force showed us the truth, we just interpreted it subjectively.”

She shifts closer to Ben and wraps her arms around his waist. He presses a soft kiss to her lips and rests his forehead against hers. 

“Out of everyone in the galaxy,” Rey whispers, “I’m glad the Force tied me to you.”

The kiss that follows builds slowly in intensity, building pressure low in Ben’s stomach until he is hard and aching. Apparently sensing this, Rey unwraps the blanket from around his shoulders, spreads it on the ground, and lies down, opening her legs for him. Obediently, she helps him pull his sweater off of her body before gazing up at him with her eyes shining and her chest heaving. Her complete trust is like a lightning bolt to his heart and he falls down on all fours, caging her body with his arms and legs, before admitting, “I know the theory of this, but I’ve never done it before.”

Her hand comes up to cup his cheek. “Then we’ll learn together.”

She lets him run his hands over her whole body, caressing and sighing and leaning into his touch. Then he lets her explore every mole, freckle, line and scar of his skin until she’s had her fill. He feels her readiness, her desire for him in his mind, and with his fingers he can tell that she drips for him. She nods assent, so with a sharp intake of breath, he lines himself up with her entrance and pushes his hips forward. Rey winces, tensing every muscle.

**_Keep going,_ ** she whispers in his mind. **_It’s okay._ **

But the bond betrays her. He senses the bloom of pain between her legs, and the idea that he’s hurting her almost breaks him. He braces on his hands to pull out and roll away, but she clutches his shoulders and looks straight into his eyes. “Please,” she breathes. 

With a shudder, Ben withdraws and thrusts forward again, this time more slowly, letting her adjust around him. Once he’s seated completely inside of her, Rey moans, and all her muscles contract, squeezing him like she will never let go.

The intensity of these feelings dance him to the edge of the Dark, and each thrust brings him closer to a growing need to consume her, to claim her, to conquer Rey’s body, mind, and soul. He needs her like this always, receptive and willing and open to sate his every desire. But the thought that keeps him from the darkness is that he would happily give her power over him, too. He would give her _anything, absolutely anything_ if she wanted. All she would have to do is allow him inside of her like this just once more. He would let her subjugate him again and again if this was his reward, if it made her ripple with joy like she does now.

He thinks later that it must have been the lack of physical and emotional separation that opens the petals of the bond to a complete blossoming of light. With all divisions between him and Rey dissolved, Ben becomes pure sensation. He and Rey, or _they_ , exist both in the moment, in each movement he makes inside of her, and beyond time and space in the very currents of the Force itself. The feeling spins both within him and outside him, intensifying until he ( _or is it Rey?_ ) cries a loud, keening sound of ecstasy. The ground of this planet seems to tremble until his vision whites out. 

When he finds his breath again, all is quiet and peace. Rey lightly scratches her fingernails up and down his back, nearly purring with contentment. Gently, he pulls his hips away, shuddering at the sense of loss when he leaves her body. He falls onto his back on the blanket. The bond shines and hums between him and Rey as its vibrations ease into a lower frequency.

She lays her head on his chest, right over his heart, and murmurs, “I’m so grateful.” 

All he can do is slide his own reciprocal gratitude into her mind before he falls asleep.

########

A harsh beam of morning sunlight slashes rudely across Ben’s eyelids, rousing him from a deep slumber. The first thing he notices is that Rey is no longer curled into his side with her back to the fire. The second thing he notices is a small, dented pot atop the smoldering coals. As he props himself up on an elbow for a closer look, he smells the sharp, rich scent of caf.

Marveling at where she found it on this desolate rock, he stretches and walks to the rough wooden bench where she has placed a clay cup and his neatly folded clothes. They are stiff from the sea water, but dry and less dusty and smelly than they had been the cycle before. He clips Anakin’s lightsaber to his belt and pours himself some caf. 

Outside, the air is bracing and clear. A cool sea breeze lifts his hair almost to the roots before he sips the bitter liquid from the clay cup and rolls it around on his tongue. 

Just then, Rey appears over a ridge. She’s holding a tall, large stick and her Force Signature is exceedingly calm and balanced.

“You’ve been meditating.”

She smiles in confirmation and rises up on her toes to give him a kiss. “Mmm you taste good,” she murmurs.

“There’s a bit still in the pot, if you want it.” He gestures back toward the entrance of their little hut. 

“No thank you.” Her eyes twinkle as she senses his happiness. “I want you to drink it all. I know how much you like it.”

Ben’s chest tightens at this lovely, thoughtful gesture. “Stars, you are incredible,” he mutters, and she blushes prettily with pleasure. “Where’d you get it?”

He knows the answer when her gaze falls to the ground and she shifts her weight from foot to foot. “It was Luke’s,” she whispers.

A sudden headache spikes behind Ben’s temple. Of course. Of course it was his. Ben struggles to smash down the instinctive fear and anger at the sound of his uncle’s name. He swallows hard before he says, “Wherever you found it, thank you.” He cups her cheek and rubs his thumb over a patch of freckles near her nose. 

Glancing up from under her eyelashes, she tells him that her idea is to spar and then to explore the island together. He agrees to all of this on the condition that she finishes the rest of the caf first.

Their sparring complete, they have descended almost to the level of the beach when Ben feels the familiar, cold tendrils of the Dark wrap around his mind. He knows before Rey announces it that they are near the cave. They scale up a wall of rocks and drop down over the other side to see a huge round hole lined with dark seaweed. Fragments of whispers in Ancient Sith swirl around the opening, beckoning him with promises of restored dominion, untold riches, revenge, glory, and illimitable power. 

Rey lingers away from the opening, wrapping her arms around her middle as he shuffles closer to the edge, igniting Anakin’s lightsaber and leaning over to try to get a better look at what secrets lie below. “You said there was some kind of mirror?”

“Careful,” Rey says, her hands wrapping around his elbow. “You seem to have a habit of falling into pits.”

He grumbles, “One of the most powerful Sith Lords ever force-pushed me into that hole, I’ll have you know.” 

From the damp chill of the darkness, voices swirl more insistently. They trickle into his mind like poison, but the seductive edge that the Dark Side had always had is gone. There is no Snoke, no Palpatine whispering lies as he tosses and turns in bed at night. There is only Rey, and her fluttering heartbeat as she presses her chest into his bicep.

He takes a step back from the edge. “I can see what you meant when you said it called to you,” he says finally.

Rey nods and her mouth twists. “It promises to give you all you desire, but it leaves you with nothing.” Her eyes grow watery before she asks, “Did it call to you, too?”

Ben’s eyes burn at the wise words of his smart, sweet girl. He wraps her up in his arms and rests his chin on top of her head. “I have everything I desire right here,” he mumbles.

It is a more arduous hike to the Jedi temple, which seems to be perched at the highest point on the island. Ben marvels that even though the soaring space is enclosed with thick, dark stone, it still seems to be flooded with sunlight. 

Rey draws his attention to the pool between them. Inlaid into the floor of the temple is an ancient mosaic. He kneels to inspect it, and she mirrors his actions.

“Luke called it The Prime Jedi,” she says.

Ben sits back on his heels, awed at the craftsmanship of the ancient art, the primitive materials combining to create a perfect depiction of an ancient Jedi sitting in meditation. “Yes. From the _Rammahgon_.”

Her dimples stand out and her eyes glow with excitement as their gazes meet. “You’ve read it?”

“Of course,” he mutters, running his fingers through the water to touch the inlaid shells and precious stones. 

“There are some passages that I—“ she breaks off and he studies her hesitant face. She glances away before continuing. “Three-pio helped me translate them, but I don’t _understand_ them, if that makes sense.” Her intensity is almost startling when she asks, “Will you help me, Ben?”

Love for her and everything she stands for swells in his throat. He wonders if he will ever be worthy of her, before he can manage to rasp, “Anything for you, sweetheart.”

Her smile is brighter than a thousand suns.

They eat their meager lunch while sitting against the wall of the temple. The flow of their conversation is easy, but Ben gets the impression that Rey wants to question him more about the texts, about other ideas on which she needs clarification. But she does not, and Ben doesn’t offer the information because it means he would have to think about Luke, to dredge up memories of their lessons that he’d rather not recall. 

When they finish, Rey suggests that they meditate together. 

It seems to make the most sense to position themselves again on either side of the mosaic. But this time, Ben reaches out and takes Rey’s hands within his own. The contact steadies him as he lets himself drift with the Force. Her glowing presence floats alongside him, following anywhere he goes in its currents. He centers himself in the Light, not closing off the Dark, but not inviting it in, either. 

Time loses all meaning here, and he doesn’t know how long they’ve meditated when he feels the tiniest flicker of the presence he had most feared he would meet upon coming to this planet. With Rey’s skin against his, though, he can push the fear away, he can retreat to the safety of the bond and block out all else except her and the pure Force. 

But the moment that the sun dips its toes into the water, Ben opens his eyes. The presence that has covered him like a blanket since he first arrived grows stronger, its light more insistent. 

Rey seems to feel it too, and she seems to sense that it isn’t here for her. “I’m off to catch some fish for dinner.” She glances over her shoulder with a little sigh, and then whispers, “Tell him I said hello.”

All he can muster is a tight-lipped smile and a little nod. 

Slowly, she backs away and he listens to her footsteps echo off the walls of the Jedi cave as she retreats. Her brilliant presence becomes an ember in the Force, moving down the hills and away from him. He clings to the knowledge that she isn’t far and holds it like a shield as he walks out onto the stone promontory and sits on a great boulder that faces the sea.

“Well hi, kid. Funny seeing you here.”

Ben doesn’t even have to move his head to know whose spirit has manifested next to him. The Force signature is almost as familiar as his own name. He’d learned with him, trained with him, traveled with him—and hunted him—for almost his entire life. 

For protection, Ben slips on a mask of feigned defiance: presses his lips together, sets his chin, and fixes his eyes on the ocean in front of him. Inside, though, a scared boy wants to cry out to Rey for help.

“The Force works in mysterious ways, I suppose.”

Ben struggles to shove down the anger that flares at his uncle’s nonchalant, almost bored, tone. 

“If you mean my bond with her—” He stops to take a deep breath. _Control_ , he reminds himself. _Peace_. He watches the waves crash below, frothy foam flying up over the rocks, then closes his eyes and feels for Rey. She is a luminous, pulsing light near the sea now, reaching out into the water with her mind to find a fish to spear.

“Jedi aren’t supposed to have attachments,” Luke says, glancing at Ben out of the corner of his eye. “I’m sure I taught you that.”

Ben snorts. “I am no Jedi, as you are well aware.”

“Did I say you were?” Luke’s tone is calm. “ _She_ is a Jedi. Or the closest thing to it.”

This proclamation is what makes Ben finally snap his head around. Luke is a brilliant azure, shining all around the edges with white light. His power, his complete oneness with the Force, is so beautiful that Ben nearly gawks open-mouthed at the sight of it. But his awe is quickly replaced by disdain for this man--his uncle, his former master, his one-time enemy. He will _not_ permit Luke to soil his connection with Rey, the only thing left worth fighting for in the whole damn galaxy. 

“Are you implying that I--” he bares his teeth—“ _corrupt_ her?” 

Luke returns Ben’s steady gaze. They stare at each other in a long standoff during which the Dark Side threatens to flare up within Ben like a smoky wildfire, fueled by rage, disappointment, and fear. The thought of pushing Luke off the cliff flashes into his mind, but he knows it would be a fruitless tantrum, that the man is only a ghost and that his anger would hardly be slaked by such a pointless act.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath to soothe his emotions, Ben gazes at the sun, which has by this time, sunk up to its knees in the water. 

“Unfortunately for the _Jedi_ ,” he spits the word out of his mouth like blood, “we are a dyad. Two that are one—forever.” He glances at his uncle out of the corner of his eye. “Anyway, her darkness has nothing to do with me. She’s a Palpatine.”

Never taking his eyes from the sunset, Luke sighs, “These kids.” He shakes his head as if Ben is a young padawan who has failed to grasp a simple lesson. “Everyone has light and dark inside of them. It doesn’t _matter_ who their grandfather is.”

He turns to Ben. “What matters is which side of us we choose to nurture,” he says, his raspy voice imbued with intensity. “Which side we draw upon to govern our actions and make our decisions.”

Now it’s almost like Ben is the one who has been Force pushed off the cliff. The shame steals the air out of his lungs as he realizes that he is the one who is transparent, not the spirit standing beside him. He had always wanted to believe that Snoke or Palpatine or Luke or his mother made his choices for him. But in the end, he knows the truth. 

The choices had been all his.

Consequently, he can’t resist one last dig. 

“I know which side you were drawing upon the night you stood over me with your lightsaber, ready to kill,” he hisses, dripping with bitterness.

Luke’s ghost actually seems to wince. Ben, gratified by the fact his uncle has absolutely no excuse for his actions that night, watches the shimmering crescents of orange on the waves. There is nothing, _nothing_ Luke can say to justify what he did. And that is victory enough for Ben now.

Finally, Luke says, “As I admitted before, I failed you. And I am _truly_ sorry.”

Hot tears gather in Ben’s eyes as the words evoke memories of how he had acted on Crait: blood thirsty, ruthless, reckless. In the end, it had cost him Rey. It had sent her running from him for a whole year. 

“It’s too late for apologies,” he mutters. 

Everything on the island, everything in the sky, takes on a faint pink tint, except the Force Ghost who stands quietly next to Ben. A whiff of smoke floats through on the breeze, and Ben tugs the bond in curiosity. She is unguarded, and he can see through her eyes the little fire she has built on the sand and the contraption of reeds that she has rigged to roast a fish. He sees her hands, _their_ hands, one turning the spit and the other laughingly shooing a curious Porg away from the flames. The scene in front of him, the warmth that awaits him in her arms, would be perfect bliss if he didn’t have salty tears coursing down his cheeks and old, reopened wounds bleeding in his heart.

“You’ve always felt things deeply,” Luke says, pulling Ben’s attention back from the bond. Ben sniffs and shakes his head toward the rock floor of the cliff until his damp hair falls like a curtain around his face. For some reason, the worst thing he can imagine is looking his uncle in the eyes while he sobs. “And you’ve always been more powerful than you know. That’s why I feared you.” A hand falls on Ben’s shoulder, a hand that feels so solid that the weight of it warms the skin under his sweater. “You were my--” Luke’s voice grows thicker and huskier-- “not just my padawan, my _partner_. Losing you to the dark--” Ben looks up to see him shake his glowing head sadly. It takes a few moments before the old man can go on. “It was my greatest failure as a teacher. And the worst moment of my life.” 

Luke squints at the sea, gathering his thoughts. “I came here because I couldn’t face myself and I was afraid of what I’d done.” 

“In other words,” Ben chokes, “you gave up on me.”

“No,” Luke says quickly. “That’s not true. I never gave up hope.” He pauses, the corner of his mouth curving up. “After all, you were never really gone, were you?”

Somewhere nearby, an avian creature trills a pretty nighttime tune and the wind swirls up from the sea, combing briny fingers through Ben’s hair. 

“People keep saying that,” he grumbles.

Luke chuckles. “Because it’s true.” 

Ben inhales through his nose, the Living Force flowing easy like water into his body. The Light pours into him, and he uses it to heal the wounds of betrayal and sadness, to knit them into shining pink scars on his soul. 

“You must forgive yourself first,” he hears Luke murmur.

There’s no need to hold onto this ancient anger, Ben thinks with a sigh. Not with so much beauty in the galaxy. Not with the pastel sunset and the waves and the cool, tangy breeze. Not with the forgiveness of his mother and father in his heart, and the bright presence of Rey, as she holds him in her mind while warming her hands over a cheerful fire. 

The whole time that Ben struggles through his memories, smoothing and patching the dark moments and letting love suffuse his soul, Luke waits nearby in silence, a strong, vigilant glow in the Force.

When Ben ends the meditation and lets himself drift back into awareness, he opens his eyes to see a sliver of red sun is still visible over the water. The tears begin drying on his cheeks as he looks up at Luke and nods. 

Luke smiles. “Welcome home, Ben.”

He fights to swallow against the lump in his throat. “Uncle, I don’t know where to go from here,” he rasps finally. “I’m not--I don’t feel lost--like I was before. But Rey, she--” Ben struggles to find the right words to convey the depth of what she means and the grace that she has brought him.

“You have what you need.” Ben nods before Luke continues slowly, “What does _she_ need?”

“She needs a teacher,” Ben says, almost laughing at the echo of his past self’s words. 

Luke presses his lips together in a smile. “Exactly. Someone who can teach her better than I could. Leia did her best, but she was barely trained. Rey needs a deeper knowledge of the Force, of the Jedi ways, Jedi history.” He begins walking around the rock, turning his back to the ocean. He seems to gather strength around him like a cloak with each step, and Ben cannot take his eyes off of him. “Out of anyone still living, _you_ know the most about those things, Ben.” 

“She has the texts, and she has even read them, but she needs help _understanding_ them,” Ben muses aloud. 

Luke stops right in front of him and grips his shoulders with a powerful intensity. “There’s a reason the Force linked you and Rey.” He peers into Ben’s eyes, before saying, “I had thought that she was the Last, that thousands of generations live in her. But it’s _you_ , Ben.” 

“We can make it better,” Ben says, his eyes skimming back and forth across his uncle’s transparent face.

“You will teach her everything you know, and in turn, she will carry on the Jedi Order,” Luke declares.

“We can stop taking children from their families before they are ready. We can teach both the light and the dark, but show padawans the pain of the Dark Side to nudge them away from it. It has to be their decision, though…”

Luke grins and slaps Ben’s shoulder. “Sounds like you have a plan.” With the red sky and the dark ocean spread beyond his glowing blue outline, Luke looks like the perfect embodiment of the Jedi and Sith. The Light and Dark. 

Unity. 

Balance.

He seems about to say something else, but just a fraction of a second before Ben senses Rey’s light bobbing up the steps to the temple, Luke turns toward her shining presence. He whirls back to Ben. “I don’t want her to see me,” he mutters. “I’m not part of her path any longer. But you are.”

Luke pauses for a moment, his ghostly eyes traveling over Ben as if memorizing him like this, sitting in the twilight on the meditation stone of the first Jedi temple. Ben senses his pride, his relief that his nephew has come home to dwell in the Light at last.

“The Force has always been with you, it is with you now, and it always _will_ be with you.” He shakes a finger in a playful rebuke and growls, “And don’t you forget it, kid.”

Two fat tears leak from Ben’s eyes as he nods, and he can’t choke out words through the thick lump in his throat. 

“Ben?” Rey’s voice rings through the cavern. “I brought dinner!”

He follows the sound of her voice, and when he looks back for Luke, the only signs that he had been nearby are the scent of rich earth, the whisper of a crackling saber, and a sense of deep, abiding peace. 

“Caught them myself,” she says with a proud smile as she steps into view. Almost immediately, Rey’s forehead wrinkles and her eyes fill with tenderness. She strides to Ben and wipes a tear off his chin. “No more crying,” she chides with a little smile.

“Luke was just here. I spoke with him and I—“

“I know.” She traces the healed scar on his face where she had cut him, her thumb taking the same path that his father’s had taken before Ben had ignited a lightsaber in his stomach. 

Her eyes gleam with compassion when she murmurs, “Are you alright, my love?” 

Catching her wrist before she pulls her hand away, Ben guides her to sit down onto the stone next to him. He leans in for a kiss, and she melts into him with a sigh, her lips and body pliant against his own. He rests his forehead on hers for a few breaths, savoring this moment, the one when he at last knows he can be the person that he was always meant to be.

“Yes. I’m okay. Everything is going to be okay.”

_Fin_

  
  



End file.
